


Pink Clouds

by CharredCitadel



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adventure, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Banter, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Danzo is a shitbag, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hot Springs & Onsen, Kekkei Genkai | Bloodline Limit, Minor Original Character(s), Missing-Nin, Multi, Polyandry, Porn With Plot, Possessive Behavior, Reverse Harem, Smut, They share well with each other though, Threesome - F/M/M, Violence, as much as you can get with a reverse missing nin harem, minor feels, oh imported from ff.net, ok I officially suck at tags, requests welcome, sakura is a missing nin, semi-realistic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-10-08 00:18:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 67,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17375924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharredCitadel/pseuds/CharredCitadel
Summary: Konoha has fallen to Danzo, and Sakura has fled far away...right into the arms of the Akatsuki. Who would have thought that life as a missing nin could be so liberating?





	1. Wet

Chapter 1

Water. So much water- freezing cold, beating down on her shoulders in torrents of rain, soaking through her clothes, sloshing through her sandals and numbing her toes as she trudged through the wet, pitch-dark field. Sakura cursed River country for its apt naming- why not the _Land of Summer and Perfect Weathe_ r? At this point, she'd even settle for _The Land of Limited Rain and Occasional Dry Days_. She cursed herself even more for deciding upon this route for her escape. Sure, it was practical- the water made it impossible for Sakura to be tracked, her scent and footprints washing away within seconds, and the conditions were inhospitable enough that even the most dedicated hunter-nin would falter after a few days, much less the two weeks she'd been here.

In all her planning, however, Sakura had neglected to consider one teensy detail- she was just as miserable here as any would-be pursuers. More so, even, dressed as she was in the thin tank top she wore to bed and her medic skirt with tights that were hardly better, especially with the harsh cold of night greedily leeching the warmth from her with every gust of wind. If it weren't for the constant stream of chakra she circulated through her body, she'd have collapsed of hypothermia ages ago.

Sakura sighed. When Danzo took over two months ago, she'd been so certain it wouldn't last, that the good guys would triumph like they always did, and Tsunade would return to make it all better. Sakura had gone along with it on the surface while subtly resisting in other ways, and confidently plotting with her friends. She should have known that he wouldn't stand for any insubordination, that any threat no matter how mild would be met with yet another undercover assassination- like the suspicious deaths of all the council members who had resisted him. After that show of dictatorship, Konoha's leadership had bowed to Danzo's every whim, starting with retroactively labeling Tsunade-sama, who was then on a diplomatic trip to Suna, a traitor to the village for her abandonment in the years prior.

Before they knew it, Konoha was transformed into a hyper-vigilant, paranoid military state. Mandatory curfew was rigidly upheld by the impossibly numerous Root forces that had popped out of nowhere. People disappeared in the middle of the night, a mere whisper of insubordination would get you and your family interrogated and likely imprisoned. Those who were vital to running the village, such as Sakura with her work in ANBU and the hospital, were closely monitored and worked to the bone so as to discourage time for plotting. Not that it stopped Sakura and the members of the Rookie Nine that remained in the village- together with Shikamaru, Neji and Ino, they'd found ways to communicate and make contingency plan upon contingency plan.

Sakura had almost thought their planning excessive, until one night she was woken up by a silver-haired, masked figure crouching over her with his hand on her mouth to keep her silent. Kakashi, who had been recalled into Root the minute Danzo had taken over, had found a small loophole in the seal on his tongue that allowed him to interpret some orders loosely. About a month and a half into Danzo's reign, it seemed the dictator had decided that Sakura's risk outweighed her usefulness, and ordered Kakashi to eliminate her- in part, to test the Copy-Nin's loyalty. Kakashi chose to find a different meaning in that command- get Sakura away from the village- and, with an uncharacteristically serious look in his eye, had tapped their personal code onto Sakura's skin as she startled into wakefulness:  _Root assassins. Incoming 1 minute. Initiate any contingency plan now._

His pink-haired former student had jolted, and then, with efficiency borne of years of life-threatening situations, had implemented the plan Shikamaru had come up with for this very scenario. A freshly-unsealed cadaver layered in intricate genjutsu that replicated her to a nearly genetic level was arranged on her bed in seconds. She'd had just enough time to put on her sandals, get her emergency pack full of ration bars and scrolls, and give Kakashi a fierce last hug before escaping through the window. Barely a second later, the Root team sent to ensure Kakashi's mission was a success (another insult to the legendary Copy Ninja and the previous runner-up for Hokage) had barged through the door to see Kakashi's chidori through the heart of his favorite student. Sai, who had wormed his way into the Root support team, was the only other aware of Sakura's plan aside from Shikamaru and Ino. He convinced the team to quickly set fire to the corpse, in case Sakura's regeneration seal brought her back from even this injury.

Meanwhile, Sakura had followed the escape route they'd planned for and met Genma at the village wall. He let her through, lacking his flirtatious grin for once, while layering a genjutsu on his partner and anyone in the vicinity to disguise her exit. Yamato was waiting just outside, and grew a dense, thorny bush over her trail. And so, mere minutes after Kakashi had woken her up in the dead of night, Sakura was running far from Konoha, presumed dead by most of her friends and colleagues. She was headed southwest towards the Land of Wind- once she passed Suna, she could make her way along the southern coast out of the Elemental nations entirely.

Her shishou herself was currently receiving political asylum in Suna, along with Naruto. Gaara's friendship extended far once it was attained, but this move strained the relationship between the villages almost to the breaking point. At this point, Danzo had numerous spies in Suna and vice versa, making it impossible for Sakura to seek refuge there lest she be recognized, and thus put Kakashi and the others in danger. For her survival to mean anything, she had to effectively disappear off the face of the planet, run as far and fast as she could to put the horrors of the coup behind her.

A flash of lightning in the dark sky, followed by the rumble of thunder, jarred Sakura from her brooding thoughts.  _Great,_ she thought miserably,  _as if the fates didn't hate me enough. I just_ had  _to become a missing-nin during monsoon season._

A snide inner voice popped up,  _ **Well, if a certain someone had actually packed clothes along with your scrolls and food rations, we might not be completely screwed right now.**_

Sakura ignored the voice with practiced ease, as well as the fact that it was completely right. She'd expected to have the opportunity to steal some clothes from a village on the way, but after spotting a root agent in the vicinity of the first civilian settlement she came across, she realized it was too risky. After that scare, Sakura had decided to completely avoid any towns or villages lest she be found out- which resulted in two miserable weeks of living off a dwindling supply of ration bars and whatever food she could catch or scavenge in the forests. Sakura was so sick of rabbit she'd gladly never look at another one in her life.

The impending thunderstorm alerted her to the true danger of her current situation- standing alone in a field of wet grass combined with lightning was a certain recipe for disaster.

Sakura forced herself to shake off her exhaustion and look around for shelter. As if the fates had decided to finally take pity on her, a ray of moonlight broke through the cloud cover on the horizon and illuminated the rainy landscape just enough to see a bit farther. Taking a proper survey of her surroundings, Sakura breathed a sigh of relief: there was a scattering of rocky hills ahead that looked promising. If she could find a cave, she might even be able to start a fire and finally warm the chill from her bones.

As she approached, however, the thick rain abated just enough for her to see an even more welcome sight- dim yellow lights nestled in the inky outline of the rocks, framed by a small copse of trees. Sakura turned towards it, determined to convince whoever lived there to let her stay a night. Maybe even some food- she had a decent amount of emergency money that she'd barely touched, and she was far enough from Konoha now that it should be fine. The thought of being warm and dry for a change- not to mention eat something other than rabbit or ration bar- made Sakura pick up the pace in hopeful anticipation.

Upon reaching the building, Sakura nearly laughed out loud in relief: the sign over the entrance read "Taki Mountain Springs Inn," which meant she had a good chance of a relatively safe and anonymous shelter. Huh. If she had known there were hot springs around, she might have had an easier time avoiding hypothermia.

Clumsy from the cold and shivering hard, Sakura finally pushed past the doors into the warm, smoky interior and almost groaned in relief. Spotting the small bar that was along the wall, she quickly made her way over, slicking her wet hair back with her hands in a futile attempt to look more presentable than the half-drowned cat look she was currently sporting. Dimly, she was aware of a few darkened figures sitting by the fire on the far wall, but at the moment her only concern was getting a warm drink to get the bone-deep chill out of her body.

"S-s-sake, warm. One bottle," she ground out. Then, as an afterthought, "and some food, if you serve it. Whatever's warm and filling."

The innkeep was a broad and bearded man who only raised an eyebrow before nodding mutely and going to warm the sake. Once he brought it, she downed half of the bottle in one gulp. The delicious heat started spreading through her veins, and Sakura finally relaxed a bit and paid a bit more attention to her surroundings. The inn was mostly empty, only a pale-faced, nervous-looking maid who resembled the barkeep cleaning one corner, and muted conversation behind Sakura from far corner. Almost unconsciously, she channeled some chakra to her ears to eavesdrop while idly sipping her sake and starting on the hot udon soup the barkeep brought her.

"Bastard, you don't know what you're talking about, stupid fucker! I should have killed you just for being a Jashin-damned idiot a long time ago so I wouldn't have to listen to this bullshit. Fuck, I don't get why Leader-sama decided to pair me off with you two infidels for this mission."

At the mention of the word mission, Sakura perked up a bit, listening with a bit more attention.

A new, eager voice replaced the sarcastic, vicious tone of the first speaker.

"You don't understand, un! This is an opportunity for us to create the best art in the world! You're the perfect candidate to test out my new 'Shinobi Explosion' no jutsu, since you can't die, un! Haven't you ever wanted to be part of something greater and more beautiful than yourself? …Un," he added belatedly in his passion.

"First of all, bitch, ain't nothing more beautiful out there than yours truly. Bitches dig this body, and not just because I'm a holy motherfucker. Second of all—"

"-Bahahaha who, you? You couldn't seduce a blind nymphomaniac with a pain fetish, much less some regular hotties. I bet they'd even go for fishface over here over you, un!"

"Hey!" protested a third voice, deep and gravelly. "I'll have you know I'm a total chick magnet. Bitches dig a little  _animal."_  His voice lowered on the last word and Sakura shivered despite herself. Clearly, sake in her stomach after two days of not eating wasn't the best decision even with her tolerance. She helped herself to more soup, dipping chunks of bread in it, as she continued to listen.

"Hah! If by animal you mean they love the smell of fish in bed then you must be hanging out with some weird fucking women. Pyro here doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about though. With his girly ass looks the only pussy he'd ever get is his own." The voice howled with laughter, joined by deep chuckles from 'fish-face'. Curious now despite herself, Sakura turned slightly in their direction. Through the haze of the smoky and dimly-lit room, she could see three masculine figures, one hulking with huge shoulders and spiky hair, and two blondes, one more slender and with a high ponytail, the other with slicked back light hair and a stronger build. The gravelly voice spoke up again, coming from the giant.

"He's got you on that one, Deidara. Even I thought you were a girl when you first joined."

The blonde with a ponytail visibly bristled even across the room, and Sakura suppressed a smile of amusement. This unexpected show seemed more entertaining than some of the dramas she watched with Ino. The thought of her best friend sobered her mood a bit, but she kept listening to the conversation, sneaking glances through her lashes as she sipped on the last of her sake. Realizing she was running out, she signaled the barkeep for more and settled in to shamelessly eavesdrop.

"Oh yeah? At least I don't have creepy-ass teeth and gills to scare them away the minute they see me, un. And I can actually behave like a gentleman long enough to get them in bed unlike certain dickheads around here, un!"

The silver-haired man (and for a moment, Sakura missed Kakashi desperately even though they looked nothing alike), instead of bristling leaned back and laughed. The low, self-satisfied sound made her think of decidedly un-Kakashi-like things, which was a clear signal to her that she should stop drinking immediately. Or get laid. After two weeks of zero human contact, she was going a bit crazy, clearly.

"Fucker, now I  _know_  you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about! The only way to get bitches to be into you is to be a little fucking rough with them. The ladies love bad boys."

"Nah! You don't know how much pussy I've gotten by playing the gentleman card, un!"

The cocky one with the sailor's mouth rejoined, "Wanna bet that's not true? I bet you the next chick we see will be all over me and completely reject you."

"Fine, un! I'm gonna show you the real way to seduce a woman."

"The stakes?"

"Winner can shove off one mission of his choice to the loser, un."

"Fucking deal! This win is mine!"

The giant next to them chuckled and suddenly pointed in Sakura's direction, who hurriedly turned back to her sake and pretended she hadn't been trying to scrutinize them from across the room. With Sakura's chakra-enhanced hearing, his low voice sounded like he was speaking right into her ear, making shivers of anticipation roll down her spine.

"Well, boys, I think you're getting your chance sooner than you thought. Look what the storm drove in, there at the bar."

The two other figures perked up and looked around eagerly.

"What?! Where, where—"

"Get the fuck off me, goatfucker, I want to see her first!"

"I will if you quit blocking my view—"

There was a sudden hush.

"….Hot damn."

"Yeah, un."

"What the fuck is a girl like that doing in this middle of fucking nowhere?"

"I have no clue, un, but she's about to make me win the damn bet, un!"

"I think she has eyes, so not today, fuckface."

Sakura stifled an amused laugh but not her slight blush and and turned back to her sake, finishing the second bottle with a large swig. Then she swung around on her chair to face the bickering men as they got up to approach her. The sake showed its influence when the sudden motion made Sakura lose her tenuous balance on the chair. Her exhaustion combined with the alcohol made her cross-eyed for a second before she registered that she had not fallen to the floor. Instead, two massive hands were holding her up by the arms, and she was leaning into a broad, muscled chest that smelled faintly like an ocean breeze. Lifting her head groggily, she was confronted with the sight of sculpted cheeks, a grinning, pointy-teethed mouth and laughing, oddly light-coloured eyes.

"You alright there, Kitten?"

Sakura was distracted momentarily by the sight of- was it gills?- around his eyes, and she brought an unsteady hand up to touch them.

"Pretty!" She said dumbly, then resisted the urge to palm her face at her own idiocy. Apparently, sake reduced her vocabulary to that of a toddler's. 

The shark-looking man's face went slack with surprise for a second before he grinned more fully, showing off more sharp teeth. He smugly looked over his shoulder to his hovering companions.

"Hear that? Guess I'm the one who wins your bet, fuckers."

Sakura's head cleared a bit just then and she flushed at the close proximity to the man, before her reflexes pushed her out of his arms as fast as she could- which was almost civilian-slow with her current state.

"Ah, sorry about that. I don't normally get drunk like that," she tried apologizing to the giant man. He looked oddly familiar, but through the haze in her head it was hard to focus and remember where from.

He waved off her apology, "Are you kidding? Not every day I get to save a pretty lady like yourself from certain death…by floor." He winked and chuckled, obviously enjoying her flustered expression.

Sakura felt her face flame a bit, but she swallowed her defensive words and grinned ruefully back up at him. The alcohol may have played a part, but at this point Sakura was sick to death of being scared and angry all the time- besides, they clearly hadn't recognized her, and she couldn't resist a bit of teasing. So with a mischievous glance at the two other men, who seemed to be pouting at the lack of attention they were getting, she shot him a sultry look, gazing up through her lashes as Ino had taught her one sleepover a lifetime ago.

"And it's not every day that I get to be saved by such an…impressive man," she purred, cozying up to the blue-skinned ninja. Sakura took advantage of his slack-jawed surprise at her sudden boldness and trailed her fingers on his rather impressive bicep with a look of faux concern, "I hope my fall didn't hurt you…"

As the faces of his two companions were frozen in shock and disbelief, the shark-man grinned in delight and leaned forward into her space. She used to opportunity to wink at him and whisper, "Play along," glancing at the two blondes behind him. Pale blue eyes widened in comprehension and humour, and his smile turned devious. He leaned his massive frame further in, crowding her, and murmured his next words into her ear just loud enough for his teammates to hear. "I'm only hurting now that you're not in my arms anymore, kitten." The pick-up line was painfully bad, but Sakura rolled with it.

Trying not to shiver at the hot breath he inadvertently blew against her ear, she playfully rejoined, "Well, hurting my good savior just won't do. Now what's to be done about that?" She allowed her voice to get breathy, sliding her fingers from his bicep to some amazingly defined washboard abs, and thought she felt him shudder from the contact. Sakura felt giddy with adrenaline and still very tipsy, and her own daring shocked her as much as it thrilled her.

Her 'savior' released a low, hungry growl and put his broad hands on her waist, her shirt still damp from the rain.

"Oh, I'm sure I can think of a few things we can do to ease the pain…" he leered suggestively.

The two blondes on either side of him had been looking increasingly horrified by the minute.

"I can't fucking believe it…" breathed out the platinum-haired pretty boy.

"Seriously, un. Did we just…lose?" Agreed the blonde with the ponytail.

Their expressions were so lost and heartbroken that Sakura and the shark-like man looked at each other and burst out laughing. The two other men looked shocked, then contemplative, then, with a quick glance at each other, broke into sinister grins. Sakura felt a chill of foreboding go down her spine as they began to advance on her. Just as she was about to reconsider the intelligence of messing with three unknown shinobi (even though they all looked so damn familiar, if only she could remember from where), her escape was prevented by two heavy arms settling around her shoulders. The two blondes had joined forces and kept her pinned in place as they smiled excitedly.

"Now this is surprising, yeah! She really had us there for a second, didn't she?"

The pale ninja with the slicked back hair smirked and pulled her in closer to his body, making her shiver from the heat emanating from his physique.

"Fuck yeah, she did! I think we're going to have a lot of fun with this one."

Sakura's feeling of foreboding only increased, but true to her contrary nature, that only made her want to fuel the flames.

"And just what do you have in mind, Pretty Boy?" She asked daringly, defiantly. His grin widened further and he laughed incredulously.

"Fuck, this bitch doesn't back down, does she! I like this one, Fish-face! Can we keep her?"

The shark-like man looked amused at the three of them and replied lazily, "Fine by me. Haven't had this much fun with you fuckers in ages."

The blonde with a ponytail took that opportunity to slide his hand from around her shoulder to cup her neck, smiling down at her excitedly, "You're a little spitfire, aren't you, un? How would you like to have some fun?" He asked innocently. Sakura was about to reply when she felt something wet and warm on her neck where his hand was. With a gasp, she asked, "What the hell is that?"

The blonde smirked, and waved his other hand at her, the mouth on the palm of it blowing a kiss in her direction. She gulped at the implications of his words and the feeling of the mouth now lazily trailing kisses up and down the side of her neck, and bravely squeaked, "And just what is your idea of fun, Blondie?"

The blonde's eyes darkened and he chuckled lowly, "Oh, nothing too crazy. We're just getting pretty bored in this damn inn. How about a simple card game with us, un?"

"Besides," chimed in the white-haired man who looked rather charming despite his cursing, "You look a bit cold. Come sit with us by the fire, we'll fucking warm you up." The way he waggled his eyebrows at her with that statement made Sakura giggle, and with that she made up her mind. The universe might be fucking with her at the moment, but damn if she wasn't going to take her fun where she could get it. Besides, if they ever got too handsy she still had her monstrous strength to fall back on.

Sakura smiled up at them brightly and brought her arms around the waists of the two blondes on her sides. "Fine by me!" She chirped, and let them lead her to the comfortable-looking couches by the fireplace in their corner of the room. The men around her exchanged amused and somewhat incredulous glances at her seemingly thoughtless bravery. They seemed to be under the impression that she was a civilian, with her slight frame and bubblegum pink hair. Sakura decided to let them keep that illusion, if it meant they were this relaxed around her. She was used to ninja being too wary of her shinobi status to ever fully let their guard down, so this tactile comfort was new…and nice. They led her to the couch and settled her in on it, tightly wedged between Pretty-Boy and Blondie, and facing the blue man, who was perched on the armchair across from her. As they bickered lightly over who sat next to her, she took a moment to lazily examine her new companions.

The tall blue giant was a mountain of a man. Above incredibly broad shoulders, he had a captivating, sharply sculpted face with a brutal, almost cruel cast to it. What softened it was the air of good humour and intelligence that shone through his hooded, pale eyes, and the light blue, intriguing color of his skin that seemed rather like periwinkle. Her favorite colour, really- but perhaps she wouldn't mention the colour association to him. Sakura's eyes roved over his realistic-looking gills, sharp teeth that flashed past his thin lips as he talked, and suppressed a shiver at the strangely appealing, feral image.

Instead of dwelling on this thought, Sakura turned to her right at the man who was scooting ever closer to her, his thigh burning hot against hers on the couch. Blondie, as she had mentally dubbed him, was aptly nicknamed. While he didn't look as girly as his companions had teased him, he was still so pretty it was unfair, with delicately sculpted cheekbones and jawline that were just sharp enough to tip into the masculine side of the scale. More dangerous and unpredictable than he seemed at first, if his daring action with those curious (intriguing) hands of his was any indication. One was still resting on her bare shoulder, mercifully not licking anymore. However, she could still feel its lips on her skin, and to escape the too-tantalizing situation she turned her gaze to the left.

The one she decided to call Pretty Boy was a platinum, almost white-haired man with a slicked back hairdo and classically handsome features. There was something aristocratic about them, a sharp contrast with his rough and violent mannerisms. He had a perpetual cocky, somewhat sadistic grin on his face and the air of supreme confidence. The man noticed her staring at her, because he grinned, self-satisfied, and asked, "Like what you see, Pinky?"

Sakura blushed and looked away, which only encouraged him.

"Because baby, you can do more than look. Just put those hot little hands exactly where you want, you fucking know you want it."

Sakura was unused to such blatant attention and suddenly, she felt shy and shifted self-consciously, for once not having a witty reply.

The white-haired sadist spotted the weakness and pushed his advantage. Grabbing her small hand, he held her gaze as he smugly put it on his shoulder. Dazed, Sakura watched as her hand moved of its own accord to curl around the muscle, trailing across one pec which jumped at her perusal, to the other. His chest was completely bare and the skin was entirely too smooth for a shinobi. Even she had some scars, but his epidermis was supple and healthy all over. She glanced up at him in question, but his unnaturally smooth skin was clearly not a concern for him as he shot her a smoldering look, his cocky smirk returning and looking almost unbearably self-satisfied. Suddenly realizing what she was doing, Sakura growled at herself for letting him see a weakness. In retaliation, she grabbed the nipple she had been grazing her hand past and twisted sharply.

Ready for him to grovel and beg in pain, she glanced up in triumph, only to see his gaze darken dangerously.

"Oh shit, now she's done it, un." Beside her, Blondie had paled, and even the blue man looked unnerved. Sakura turned back to the man held in her hand with apprehension.

"Um, ah, sorry, my temper kind of got the best of me there," she laughed nervously and tried to move her hand away, only for him to reach up in a lightning-fast move and hold it there. His face was twisted in pleasure, he groaned, "Again." Her heart thumped at the too-intimate display and her hand was frozen in his as he opened his eyes again and smiled at her dangerously. "Keep that up and we're going to have to get a fucking room, bitch."

Across from her, the shark man groaned.

"Fuck, if this keeps up you're never going to get rid of him, Pinky. Trust you to pick up on the biggest fetish he has- sex and pain."

Shocked, she pulled back her hand and in an effort to diffuse the situation and avoid thinking about those words, addressed the blonde to her right.

"So, you were talking about a card game?"

Apparently eager to get her away from the sadist's scrutiny, he quickly replied, "How about a game of poker, un? Only," and here he smirked with mischief, "let's change up the rules a bit, yeah? Otherwise it's boring, un."

Sakura nodded, having played a lot of similar games with her friends back home. She relaxed back into the couch, now that the conversation seemed to have veered off into safer territory. (She refused to acknowledge the slight pang of disappointment she felt at that thought, chalking it up to Inner's perverted tendencies shining through).

The blue giant across from them leaned in, exchanging a quick amused glance with Blondie, "How about upping the stakes to a game of dares? The winner makes the loser do something of their choice...or the loser forfeits all their money."

Sakura frowned. On the one hand, more money would mean that she'd be able to make her escape with much greater ease. No more trudging through cold, wet grasslands, and perhaps she could even negotiate asylum with a distant village for this. On the other hand, the devilish gleam in the shark man's eyes made her suspect that if she lost, his dares wouldn't be as innocent as those games she'd played back home, where the worst someone could ask for was streaking through the village. And Lee did that even without money at stake. The little nudist. She shook her head to corral her wandering thoughts, and looked at the smirking man in front of her with distrust.

"Not sure I trust you not to cheat," she drawled, trying to sound more confident than she was.

His smirk only grew more pronounced. "Sounds to me like someone's scared of losing," he challenged, eyebrow raised and sharp teeth gleaming.

The knowledge that he was baiting her hardly lessened the responding challenge within Sakura, the old anger from being always seen as the weak one on Team 7 taking over her mouth without her permission.

"Oh please," she scoffed, "you're hardly that intimidating." She missed his widening eyes at her pronouncement, and continued, "Bring it on, Big Blue! We'll see how cocky you are when your money's mine and you're dressed in drag and proposing to the Kazekage while dancing like a geisha. Maybe you should be the one to give up before you're infamous across the elemental nations for all the wrong reasons." For some reason, her last words drew barely-suppressed snickers from the two blondes sitting beside her, while the blue giant froze before bellowing with laughter.

Soon he composed himself enough that only a few lingering chuckles remained, and he surreptitiously wiped away a tear while gazing at her with a new appreciation in his eyes.

"Challenge accepted, kitten," he grinned. Sakura's shoulders were again besieged by a muscled arm as Pretty Boy leaned in and nuzzled her neck. "Don't think you're getting out of this now, Pinky," he drawled. "After that comeback, I can't fucking wait to make you eat your words."

Sakura gulped lightly at his tone. Blondie chimed in, sliding his own arm around her waist and squeezing lightly, "Oh, I don't know, un. It will be entertaining to see her win, too! I wouldn't mind losing my money just to see you artless idiots at this one's mercy, un! Devious, I love it, yeah." He purred the last words right into her ear, and even as the action sent a shiver of arousal through her body, Sakura realized that she'd been played. Still, to back out now would be to admit defeat, and after the weeks she'd had- well, it would be fantastic to win at something for once. Besides, she'd not had a good, fun challenge like this since before Danzo came into power.

"Great, then let's play!" Sakura said bravely, and tried not to betray the tremor in her voice. She could feel their amused, predatory gazes sharpen to an almost tangible pressure on her skin, but they said nothing- instead, Blondie took out the deck of cards and began shuffling.

Never let it be said that Tsunade had trained a quitter, she thought to herself, and flagged down the barkeep for more alcohol. She'd need fortification for this game.


	2. Condensation

 

"Let's move this conversation somewhere more...private," suggested Blondie abruptly, nodding his head in the direction of the bar area, where the maid was already clearing tables for the night and preparing to close the common room. Her timid glances in their direction showed a deep reluctance to interrupt the potentially-murderous group of ninja, but she seemed to be steeling herself for confrontation the closer she got to their table. Sakura spied the severe face of the barkeep hovering by the kitchen entrance, keeping an eye on the situation- but also no doubt ready to let his worker take the fall if the ninja reacted unpredictably to the interruption. A lesson many civilians learned early on in non-shinobi villages was to be ever-wary of visiting shinobi, who could be any brand of crazy - and could kill them with a pinkie for a perceived slight. In places such as Konoha, this carried a harsh penalty for the ninja in question: outside, it was often difficult to find justice if every victim involved was dead, and pursuing the matter further could get you killed as well.

Sakura decided to spare the maid her impending heart attack. Ignoring the niggling voice of Inner who made insinuations as to her motivations for agreeing, she spoke up, "Yes, let's. What did you have in mind? The hot springs?"

Blue interjected, "Much fun as that would be-" he gave a wolfish grin "-we have a perfectly acceptable room. Care to come up with us?" The terrible pun made Sakura roll her eyes even as she nodded.

Blue's smile got predatory, and he cast a glance to Sakura's side. Before she could protest, she was in the arms of a white-haired, purple-eyed sadist, grinning maniacally as he carried her up the stairs.

The other two followed behind, taking a few bottles of sake as reinforcements. Sakura got a brief look around as Pretty Boy, ignoring her protests at being carried, managed to open the door with her still in both arms and walked in. The room—suite, more like—was spacious and surprisingly decadent, with two queen sized beds, a large couch, and a giant white carpet in front of the crackling fireplace. Sakura stared at the unexpected luxury after weeks of slumming it, and pushed down a sardonic smile. If this was her reward for following strange men to their rooms, perhaps she should do it more often. Though to be fair, she'd instead been carried like a fragile little princess. Reminded of this, Sakura shot a glare up at the ridiculously beautiful man holding her, who seemed amused at her insistence to be let down but complied. As soon as Sakura's feet hit the floor she jumped away from him, only to lurch woozily as the vertigo and the alcohol hit her once more.

"Easy, there, pinky, we don't want you passing out on us." Said the blond ninja, stepping forward in concern, though didn't touch her. The shark man had no such reservations, stepping forward again and easing his huge hands onto her shoulders to stabilize her. His appealing scent washed over her and almost made her more dizzy, and his brow furrowed at her inebriated state. Using his grip on her shoulders, he steered her towards the bathroom door and pushed her in.

"First off, Kitten, you look like you might want to freshen up a bit. Shower's over there, we don't want you passing out on us just when things get interesting." With that he winked at her, and a touched and stunned Sakura was left in the bathroom alone. Huh. Who knew that the big, intimidating man had so much consideration? Shrugging, she slipped out of her wet clothes and hopped into the spacious shower.

The tight knot of tension she'd held in her neck since the takeover was no match for the sudden relief of hot, pounding pressure on her shoulders, and Sakura felt truly relaxed for the first time in weeks. She took her time with shampooing her hair and lathering up her skin with soap- even finally shaved for the first time since escaping- and drank some of the cool water from the sink to freshen up. Looking through her pack, she found a clean set of bra and panties, and regretfully put her tights, medic skirt, and tank back on. At least they were dry again by this point, but she made a mental note to get some new clothes anyways.

Sakura felt warm and still a bit tipsy, enough that she was relaxed even in her uncertain circumstances. Fresh-faced, she stepped out of the bathroom and stopped dead in her tracks.

The sight that greeted her made her mouth run dry and rational thought flee her head. The three shinobi had made themselves at home in front of the large fireplace in the suite, sprawled on the white fur rug like they were on a seduction mission: what made it unfair was that Sakura was pretty sure they weren't even trying. The fire played along toned muscles in shades of alabaster, blue, and gold: not an inch of fat could be found on the firm, taut- if lightly scarred- skin. The three men were a study in contrasts, but shared one quality: they were all exceptionally, ridiculously attractive.

Blue was reclined on the left, dressed in grey slacks, navy sash and a black ANBU-style sleeveless turtleneck that showed off his massive pectorals almost indecently. Secretly glad for a chance to fully observe his body, Sakura ran her eyes over powerful shoulders, a broad chest and trim hips that gave his bulk an unexpected air of grace, and wished that she were bold enough to let her hands follow her gaze. The man exuded sheer physical power, even as he relaxed and chuckled at a wildly gesticulating blonde at his side.

The blond shinobi in question had a youthful appeal all his own, and a catlike grace that was mesmerizing. The mesh shirt under his crop top only served to highlight the tightly bunched, sleek muscles of his stomach, and his golden, tanned skin glowed in the firelight. His yellow hair was loose, brushing his shoulders as he used his whole, expressive body to convey something about "art, un!" He seemed the most comfortable with the other two men, slapping Blue's knee when the latter seemed to dismiss his opinion, and animatedly charming a reply from Purple Eyes, who, though scoffing and cursing, seemed fond of his companions and participated in the banter.

"As much as I fucking hate agreeing with you on your art, bitch, in this case you're fucking right, goddamn!"

The loud expletives drew Sakura's attention to the most volatile member of the group, the white-haired Adonis with a sailor's mouth. He was absolutely gorgeous and flaunted it like he knew it, now dressed only in shinobi pants, his bandages lying unraveled to the side. His perfectly proportioned chest and pale, muscled arms moved in cocky, careless movements as he sat up from his reclined position to talk to Blondie. "If anything on Jashin-Sama's good Earth is art, it's that piece of gorgeous ass right there. I have no idea how that Pinky stumbled into our arms, but she ain't fucking leaving anytime soon."

Sakura blushed as she realized the conversation had been about her, and cleared her throat to alert the men to her presence. Their heads snapped in her direction, and one by one they looked her over from head to toe and gave identical, predatory grins.

"About time, Pinky!" called Blondie, his heated gaze incongruous with his boyish face. "We started on the sake without you, now come on if you want to get some!" With that last statement, he waggled his eyebrows at her, breaking the tension and making her snort.

"Oh, trust me, I've never had trouble with that," she shot back without missing a beat. The banter made her relax a bit; having dealt with Sai and Naruto and the rest of her boys, she knew how to hold her own. The three men cracked up as Sakura made her way over to them, sitting primly between Blue and Pretty Boy, across from the self-proclaimed artist.

She threaded her fingers through the white fur of the carpet as she basked in the heat of the fire, and was suddenly fiercely glad she'd met these strangers that drew her in like a bedraggled moth to the fire. Even if they did seem so strangely familiar, almost like she should know them...

Her thoughts were interrupted as Blondie started passing the cards around, and she resolved to get her head in the game: the stakes were too high to lose.

Seconds later, looking at her hand, she fought to keep the disappointment and the sudden stab of apprehension from her face. While Tsunade had taught her to play, Sakura had forgotten in the heat of the moment downstairs that her Shishou had also passed on her bad luck in any card game. Sakura did have a great pokerface and knowledge of the game: she also simply had terrible luck in drawing good cards.

The first game, Sakura relied on her excellent bullshitting skills and blustered her way through a narrow win. Going toe-to-toe with a cocky, filthy-mouthed sadist was nerve-wracking, but her faux confidence won out and he folded, grumbling. Gleefully, Sakura collected their money, something they all chose rather quickly over keeping their money and allowing her to ask for embarrassing tasks. She wondered just how rich they were, to be staying in a place like this in the first place. Perhaps they were on the Daimyo's personal payroll. Just as well, Sakura thought, raking in her win- she would rather her escape go easier with a little extra cash than think up ridiculous dares for her companions. Their loss.

The second game, her luck with drawing bad cards held, but she couldn't out-bluff Blondie's Royal Flush: once the men saw her miserable hand, the tables turned on Sakura so fast her head spun. Two games later, she was back to her original stash of money and had to choose whether to trade in a task or give up more money. Pouting, Sakura decided not to risk her livelihood and, with a shot of liquid courage, declared the stakes to be a dare for her. Hopefully, she would win this round and it would be a moot risk: she actually had a decent hand for once. The three men straightened at her pronouncement and started to play more seriously, thinly-veiled excitement in their eyes. All of them refused to fold: finally, the last card was revealed and Sakura paled, putting her cards down. The break she'd been waiting for hadn't come, and she was left with only a pair. Across from her, Blue and Pretty Boy frowned and cursed, respectively, while Blondie crowed with triumph, raking in his win before turning his attention to her. The mischievous look in his blue eye turned speculative as he roamed it freely across her form.

"So I can ask the loser to do anything, yeah?"

Sakura just nodded miserably. What had she gotten herself into?

His lips quirked into a devious grin, "Well, since we're just starting, I wouldn't want to scare you off, Pinkie. Hmm, what to make you do?" He feigned a thoughtful expression, "I suppose...no, no that's too much. I'm not sure you'd be up for it." His comic look of disappointment made Sakura roll her eyes at his teasing. "Whatever it is, I can handle it, Blondie. Just get on with it."

The triumphant gleam that flashed through his eye made her almost reconsider her words. Almost. Feigning nonchalance, he leaned back and examined his black-painted nails. "Oh well, in that case...I was going to go easy on you, but since you asked for it~! Choose one of us and kiss him, un. A real kiss, not cheek or some bullshit like that." He turned his gaze back on Sakura in challenge.

She suppressed a jolt of surprise, despite having half-expected something like this. The chemistry between them was palpable, and from the moment that Blondie had licked her neck with his hand-mouth, she'd been half-ready to jump at them and damn the consequences. But was she really ready to turn this encounter, which had been flirtatious and full of tension but still mostly innocent, into something more?

As she hesitated for a second, she glanced into Blondie's challenging gaze. As she did, a startling mix of confidence and insecurity flashed through his eye, as if he wasn't really sure she'd do it. And with that one tiny glimpse of vulnerability beneath the cockiness, she was convinced: besides, a kiss was fairly tame as far as dares went. Turning her impassive mask into a smirk, only her eyes betraying her nervousness, she tilted her head at Blondie in agreement.

Looking at the three of them, Sakura shivered as their gazes focused upon her intently. Purple Eyes was out- if his reaction to her nipple-twist earlier was any indication, he was the most likely to take it too far, and she was unsure she would have the strength of will to turn him down if he tried. Blondie was a possibility, but looking at the renewed devious confidence in his eyes, he was banking on her choosing him and probably had some dirty trick up his sleeve. Which left Blue. While he was the most dangerous-looking and animalistic of the three, he also seemed the most mature. Besides…She'd always wanted to see what it would be like to kiss someone with teeth like that.

Decision made, she rose up on her knees and scooted over to the shark man, ignoring the surprise that spread over all three of the men's faces, and kneeled between his knees. Blondie even pouted in disappointment, while Pretty Boy let out a quiet curse, yet both looked on with interest.

Up close, the shark man's skin was smooth and indeed a periwinkle blue, and his eyes were open wide as he gazed at her with soft surprise that shifted to predatory excitement. Steeling her resolve and before he could voice his victory, Sakura placed her fingertips on his face, along his jaw below his gills, and lowered her mouth to his, once, firmly. His lips were thin but supple, and were soft with surprise at her bold move. As she started to withdraw, he unfroze, and his big hand threaded through her hair to cradle her head and hold her in place. Blue's mouth pressed against hers with more confidence than she would have expected, coaxing Sakura's mouth open and pushing his tongue along hers.

He kissed in long, hard strokes, controlled and mindful of where his teeth were, and with just a taste of barely-restrained wildness to it. Somewhere in the back of her throat, Sakura gave a slight moan at the assault, and couldn't help but return the kiss passionately. His right hand remained at the back of her head, but his left took the opportunity to settle on her hip and stroke her sensitive hipbone  _just. Where. She. Liked. It._

Her resulting moan was breathier and somehow more embarrassing than the first, and Shark-Face gave an answering growl as he kissed her once, twice, thrice more and then retreated, giving a sharp grin at her dazed expression and unfocused eyes.

"That's what you get for thinking I was the safer option," He growled at her with amusement, even as her eyes opened in shock at his perceptive words- but he was only half-right.

"There was no safe option with you three, Blue. But… I don't regret choosing you," Sakura's voice was a bit unsteady and his smile widened in delight. She still didn't know what Pretty Boy or Blondie would have done, but she'd trusted Blue to have the most self control and draw back when needed, and he hadn't disappointed her.

Blondie cleared his throat, breaking the moment, and started shuffling the cards again, looking down to hide his pleased smirk at her reaction to their first physical contact. Sakura, looking for a distraction from what had just transpired, poured a cup of sake for each of them. The shark-faced man held her gaze as he gulped down the liquid, licking his lips after and drawing her attention to the mouth that had just so thoroughly ravished hers. Feeling faint, Sakura turned her gaze towards Blondie, who winked at her before downing his own drink, and then to Pretty Boy, who tossed back the cup and then grabbed the bottle and took long swigs from it, his smooth throat working around the gulps. Mesmerized, she watched as a lone, glistening drop of sake made its way past his lips down his throat, pooling on his collarbone before continuing down, down….a cleared throat reminded her that she wasn't alone and her guilty eyes shot towards Blondie, who smirked at her knowingly.

She blushed wildly and grabbed at the fresh hand he had laid out for her, refusing to look at any of them. This had gotten out of hand so quickly, and after a mere kiss! How was she supposed to resist this unexpected attraction that had come out of nowhere and blindsided her so spectacularly? As it was, Sakura had to work harder than ever before to suppress the urge to simply give in to the inviting gazes and warm touches they offered her, not think about the societal stigma and the expectations ( _oh kami three men and how would that even_ work  _but oh she actually wanted it, so terribly much_ ), and just let them take care of her for one night. She cleared her throat to flush the overwhelming images from her mind, and took another fortifying shot of sake. Probably a bad idea if she wanted to remain sober, but thinking was clearly her enemy right now, her traitorous thoughts only accelerant in setting her body ablaze.

Her lips were still tingling, her skin flushed from more than the fire, and her gaze was again inexorably drawn to the unfairly attractive men lounging across from her, staring at her with that lazy promise. Any doubt or insecurity was gone from their expressions, replaced instead with the self-assured anticipation of any man who is certain of a woman.

Collecting herself, Sakura arched an eyebrow at their confidence, enjoying the falter in their cocky expressions. She might have internally admitted a truth about her attraction to them, but they didn't know that, and one kiss did not a guarantee make. They were going to have to work a lot harder than that to deserve that self-assurance. Though, looking at their darkened eyes and inviting mouths, Sakura admitted that it would be just as difficult for her to keep her hands off them as it would be for them convince her to do the opposite.

 


	3. Distillation

A half hour later, Sakura's plight had only become more precarious, if mitigated slightly, in her mind, by the fact that she was getting too tipsy to care about the fact. Dares she might lose, and burned she might be by this baffling attraction, but oh, how she hated to lose!

"Damn the goat-fucking troglodyte who invented this puerile, senseless assfuck of a piss-brained game! I demand a fucking rematch! It's not fair!" The wail came not from the purple-eyed sadist of the group, whose mouth was currently open in admiration at the creative expletives, but from a petite medic. "You must be cheating or the cards must be faulty somehow for me to lose this much," Sakura grumbled to the amusement of her companions as she folded yet again.

"Why would we need to do that, Pinkie? You're digging your own hole on this one, no help necessary on our part," laughed Blondie, enjoying her distress far too much. This was the third round since the one that had seen Sakura kissing Blue and consequently scrambling her brain to pieces- at least, that was her excuse for the constant losses. The second had seen Sakura's shirt off at the request of the smug shark-man, though after her grumbling they all consented to take theirs off as well- a little too eagerly, if you asked her. Whatever chance she might have had to regroup and get her head back into winning the game, it was shot once the three men were all shirtless and distractingly firelit. Damn.

Even now, they were still flexing discreetly, trying to outdo each other. While Blue won in sheer bulk and solid mass, Pretty-Boy's perfect musculature was reminiscent of a marble statue come to life- perfectly chiseled and proportionate, enough to make a sculptor weep. Even Blondie, the most slender of the three, drew her eye by working the firelight to his advantage, lithely stretching far too often to be accidental. Most shinobi she'd seen (and as a medic, she'd seen quite a few) were well-muscled by necessity of their training and lifestyle, but there was something especially appealing about these three. An attraction beyond simple appreciation of beautiful form, a burning chemistry that drew her in and smothered her reservations.

Sakura had pouted at the inadvertent backlash of her request to even the field, and resolutely kept her gaze off their shirtless forms for the third round. For that inattention, she lost track of tells and had to fold, cursing herself as she saw the sadistically excited glint in the winner's purple eyes.

She was saved that round, however: Blue had also played for a dare that game, which meant that the white-haired ninja couldn't request anything from her he didn't also want from the shark. The sadist got around that by stating that everyone was still 'too fucking uptight' to have any fun, and ordered both Sakura and Blue to take a double shot of sake to loosen up. Sakura had been sobering up before that point, so this extra alcohol put her back into the reckless mood that had gotten her into this mess to begin with. On the plus side, she was less anxious to lose the dares: in fact, the more they played, laughed, and interacted, the less she cared about the penalties they might impose. Instead, dare she say it, Sakura actually found herself looking forward to them.

This stray thought seemed to have tempted the gods too much, for the next round saw her folding almost right away, reading the tells of her companions to reveal that each already had at least a pair. Sakura may have...lost her temper a bit at that continuing bad luck, but didn't pout for long. Instead, she chose to let it go in favor of observing Blondie as he lounged on the rug like some great sleek cat, deceptively observant and ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Catching her eye, he let a slow grin spread over his face, then shifted deliberately to flex taut muscles beneath golden skin, laughing when her eyes followed the movement hungrily. Sakura flushed. Quickly forcing her gaze away from the hypnotic sight, she resolutely tried to focus on the game in front of her. Big Blue cursed and folded next, then used the newfound freedom to absently graze his fingers around Sakura's slender ankles, bare and half-buried in the thick rug. Barely touching her skin, he delicately traced the outline of her anklebone, then drew little swirls up and down her foot. The movement was incredibly distracting, so much so that she missed the moment Pretty Boy lost his concentration, watching her, and folded as well. Blondie grinned in delight as she turned to face him in half-dread, half-anticipation. The look in his eye showed that he was feeling more daring than before, clearly encouraged by her shameless ogling.

"Guess I'm the victor again, huh, Pinky? Now what to make you do…" He trailed off as his heated gaze perused her body, from her black tights that snugly encased slender legs, to her simple black bra that made her pale skin seem to glow. His blatant appraisal made her nipples harden and her breath come more quickly, and Sakura was suddenly acutely aware of her half-dressed state. Forcing aside a self-conscious impulse to cover herself up, she instead straightened her back, unconsciously biting her lower lip in anticipation. His gaze snagged there for a second, observing her soft mouth before dragging up to her eyes, wide with apprehension and curiosity in equal measure. Blondie smirked and reclined, his decision made.

"How about…you have to sit still for one full minute while I do whatever I want to that hot little body of yours, un," he drawled. Sakura's eyes widened briefly, and she swallowed before answering.

"For one loss? That's too much," she hedged. Was she really ready for where this was going? "Thirty seconds, and above clothes only," she rejoined. Privately, she made another caveat: she reserved the right to punch his brains out if he went too far, or broke these rules. Though she somehow doubted that would happen. Sakura was almost more worried about her own reaction to this man touching her.

"Deal," Blondie said immediately, his quick acquiescence setting her on edge. Nevertheless, Sakura had agreed, and so cautiously crawled across the carpet to the spot he patted in front of him. She sat stiffly with her legs bent demurely to the side, posture straight, unwilling to be embarrassed by him. Blondie moved closer to run a slender nose along her neck and breathe in her scent, and she couldn't repress a shiver at the tease. He chuckled in her ear, and moved away completely, turning to Blue, "Got your watch, un?"

The shark man nodded mutely, setting the timer and looking curious as to how far the blonde would get to go with her. His eyes showed only interest and excitement, not a hint of the jealousy Sakura would no doubt have displayed if she saw someone go from kissing her to getting touched by another. But then, these three seemed exceptionally adept at sharing. Konoha could learn a thing or two about their team-building, Sakura thought with a suppressed giggle.

All amusement fled when she turned back towards Blondie and saw taut anticipation in every line of his body. Feeling like prey cornered by a predator, she tamped down a sudden impulse to run.

As if reading her thoughts, Blondie gave her a wicked grin, all teeth and no comfort. Sakura lifted her head and smirked back at him in false bravado, as if daring him to do his worst. A blond head tilted at the challenge, and then, without warning, he moved.

His frame unfolded and he crawled towards her in a sinuous, fluid motion, further reinforcing the image of some great jungle cat in her mind. A single visible blue eye pierced through her and kept her frozen as he brought his hands down on her body, one right along her sensitive hipbone, and the other on the juncture of her neck and shoulder. The hand on the hip made slight circles over her skin, barely touching it, making her sigh softly and lean into the movement before she knew what she was doing.

Suddenly, that same hand took a firmer grip on her hip, using the leverage to pull her towards him and into his lap. Sakura fell onto the blond man in a sprawl, hands on his chest and eyes wide with surprise. Her mouth opened to object, and that's when Blondie took advantage to surge in and crash his mouth against hers, tongue invading immediately and robbing her of her breath.

His kisses were hot, explosive, tongue and teeth and hot breath all an assault on her senses until she forgot what she'd been about to say. The hand on her neck  _licked_  its way down her clavicle, nibbled and pressed hard, wet kisses along her inner cleavage. The other hand snuck over along her ass, to the small of her back and firmly pressed her body into him, letting her know just how much she affected him. Feeling the undeniable hardness against her stomach, Sakura gave a little whimper. Blondie swallowed the sound with his lips, biting her lower lip and then soothing away the sting with his hot, nimble tongue. Against her will, she ground against him, desperate for his touch.

The hand on her cleavage returned to the back of her neck and tightened incrementally as she writhed in his lap, and suddenly she felt a nibble, then a stronger bite to the back of the neck. The tongue on his hand quickly soothed that pain away too, in wet kneading strokes on sensitive skin. Searing pleasure took the place of pain, and Sakura felt hot and needy, her body tingling from her neck outwards. She gasped, rolled her hips desperately against him once more- and then the clearing of a throat right beside them startled her into jumping back and out of his arms...

Right into those of an amused Blue, who had been the one to cough as the thirty seconds ran out. Now, he grinned at her ferally and kept her in his lap when she tried to crawl off.

"That was quite a show, Kitten," He purred at her, showing sharp teeth and a sharper desire hooded in his eyes. He adjusted his hold, and Sakura realized that the hardness she was resting against was harder than muscle should be, and was pressing against her ass rather insistently. She squeaked and jumped up from his lap, and this time he let her, watching her with hooded, dark eyes and a lazy, predatory smile…as if she was already caught and just didn't know it yet.

Avoiding his gaze, she turned to the suspiciously quiet third member of the group…and blushed violently as she saw him reach down and blatantly adjust himself, staring at her. When he saw her looking, he smirked lasciviously and brought his hand back up from his crotch, trailing slowly up the white-haired happy trail visible above the edge of his pants, up his perfectly sculpted abs, to a dusky nipple that was still somewhat red from her earlier mistreatment. Her eyes followed the movement helplessly, parched in the face of a desert oasis, until he chuckled darkly and her gaze snapped to his face.

"I can't fucking wait for my turn, babe." He winked at her and she, impossibly, blushed harder. So much for playing cool, she thought wildly, pressing cool fingers to her flaming cheeks in an attempt to bring down the blush. Her blood seemed conflicted over its destination, split pretty evenly between her face and a good bit lower. Clearly, none was going to her brain, for she could hardly think over the raging demands of her libido to strip all her clothes off and demand they take her.

Overwhelmed with the testosterone raging through the air and bombarding her already reeling hormones, all Sakura could do was crawl back to her spot between Blue and Pretty Boy, refusing to even glance at the smug smirk she knew was on Blondie's face across from her. In fact, all three of the men radiates smugness so palpably that she was tempted to slap it off their faces. And then kiss it all better. Fuck.

 _ **Well, that too**_ , piped up the breathless voice of Inner.

Sakura twitched and suppressed a growl. ... _Shut up, Inner._

With a herculean effort, Sakura tamped down her libido and Inner both, and picked up her new hand. Ignoring the amused stares of the men around her, the medic stared hard at the deck as if it held the answers to her prayers.  _One more win, and I take the money and run,_  she resolved. Even as she thought it, however, there was a traitorous voice in the back of her head that wished that the win would never come.


	4. Vaporization

It seemed that even in such a desperate situation as this, her cards. Simply. Refused. To. Cooperate.

Sakura glared down in desperation at her miserable hand, knowing she would have to folder again…and from the smug looks of her fellow players, they knew it. Sighing and deciding to just get it over with, she threw down her cards and took the last swig left in the sake bottle. No way was she was going to get through this night sober; she might as well get some more liquid courage. While she got tipsy easily, drinking with Tsunade had trained her body to filter out alcohol once it got past safe levels, so she never had to deal with hangovers or blackouts…which she regretted more than once after some particularly wild nights out with Ino. As the slow burn of the alcohol warmed her up from the inside, she glanced around at her companions, who seemed in fierce competition over who would win this favor from her.

Deidara lost first, disappointed only for a moment, then cheerfully scooting over to her across the carpet and proceeding to take her hand in his to massage her palm and fingers. It was almost a sweet, comforting gesture, until his tongues came out to play and teased her pulse point and the inside of her palm. She jumped when the teeth in his right hand grazed the pad of her index finger, then watched as it was pulled inside the hot, wet mouth. Her breath stopped and she couldn't help but stare as the mouth released her finger with a wet 'plop' and continued down her hand as if nothing had happened. Sakura wondered at the physics of how that could happen in the back of her mind, while trying to ignore her overheating libido. She raised her gaze to meet Blondie's, who was watching her with dark eyes and was unsmiling for once. Sakura gulped at the heat in his eyes, the resolute promise in them, and her lips parted involuntarily.

Just then, Blue cursed violently and uncharacteristically and threw down his cards onto the carpet, glowering at Pretty Boy, who cackled and whooped in glee. His mirth dying down, the Jashinist suddenly zeroed in on Sakura, whose face rapidly paled at the thought of this volatile and manic man having her next dare in his hand. Looking like Christmas had come early, the white-haired sadist grinned in anticipation at Sakura.

"Fucking finally, godddamn! I've been waiting for this the whole night, Pinky."

"Well…." Sakura lost a bit of her bravado at the predatory look in his eyes, "…what do you want, Pretty Boy?" She finished not without a tremor in her voice, despite her challenging words.

"Mmm, so obedient already, I fucking love it!"

Sakura's eyes narrowed.

"Don't get too cocky now. If I don't feel up to the task I'm not doing it, so whatever pervy thoughts you got going on there you might as well quit now," she sniffed haughtily, her irritation at his overconfidence overruling her trepidation momentarily.

"Oh please, bitch," Pretty Boy grinned cockily, "you know you want  _every._   _dirty. little. thing._  I'm thinking of."

His deep voice grew husky as he spoke, in such a blatantly sexual way that it took effort not to visibly react. Determinedly ignoring the hot anticipation building in her core, she goaded him.

"In your dreams, Pretty Boy!"

His eyes darkened at the challenge, even as the two other men chuckled at their verbal sparring.

"Oh yeah?" He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "In that case, here's my challenge."

Big Blue and Blondie leaned forward in anticipation, and Sakura swallowed at the cocky look on his face. Pretty boy exchanged smug glances with the two men, "You sit that pretty little ass down, and for one minute, I get to do whatever I want to you, same rules as with Pyro here," he gestured at the blonde. "Only, here's the stakes: You make a damn sound, and you have to admit that you want me, want us. Stop hiding behind your fake fucking morality and own up to your desires."

Sakura challenged, "And if I stay quiet?"

He chuckled, "If, by some crazy fucking miracle, you don't react, then we will admit defeat and will behave like fucking gentlemen for the rest of the night." This didn't sound too appealing to Sakura, who was quickly realizing that as much as she'd like to blame the alcohol, she just  _liked_  their easy forwardness,  _liked_  the way they teased and challenged her and saw her as an equal despite her small size and ridiculous pink hair. She was used to being underestimated and treated like a fragile doll by people who didn't know her, or else distant respect and reverence as the Hokage's apprentice by those who did. Bantering, flirting with these men was as unusual for her as it was oddly natural. Like she'd known them for years.

Still, she had her pride to consider, and she refused to back down from a challenge. So with her own cocky smirk, she parried, "Bring it, Pretty Boy!"

His grin widened in delight at her agreement, "Oh, you asked for it, Bitch."

Blondie moved to her side as the Jashinist slid in her direction, but still kept his hand entwined with hers, his mouth pressing lazy kisses into her sensitive palm. "Make a good show, 'Pretty Boy'," he murmured, "We're counting on you, un."

The priest threw him a wild grin, "Just watch and learn, bitch!"

Then he stalked in Sakura's direction, his every movement deliberate and dangerous.

Despite herself, Sakura drew back, only to press up against the chest of Big Blue, who had slid up behind her and was watching the ensuing show with predatory interest. His hand slid down her waist and held her in place as he lounged behind her, intent on seeing this up close. "Going somewhere, Kitten?" He growled with amusement, his smile widening to display sharp teeth as he felt her shiver.

Helplessly, she looked back towards Pretty Boy, who had barely paused in his sinuous movement towards her. He crawled towards her on the carpet, hands burying in the soft fur before reaching her ankles, sliding up to her bent knees and massaging their soft, sensitive undersides.

"Don't look so fucking afraid, Pinky," he smirked. "I won't hurt you…unless you want me to," he chuckled darkly, sending a visible shiver through Sakura. Noticing it, he smirked. "Cold?" The mocking humor in purple eyes showed Sakura that he saw right through her denial, so she stayed mute as he kept going without waiting for a reply. His hands continued the journey up her thighs, past her sensitive hipbones, up her waist and to cup her small, perky breasts through her bra. They pebbled immediately, pushing up through the fabric and drawing his attention.

"Fucking perfect, goddamn," He breathed out, and lowered his mouth to the left breast. His lips opened and his tongue rolled against the fabric, sending a scorching wave of heat through Sakura's body straight to her core. It was all she could do to keep quiet, gasping in a barely-audible breath and arching her breasts into his mouth, a silent demand— _'more!'_

The priest complied, biting down softly on the hard nipple before lifting his mouth and applying the same wet ministration to the other one. Sakura felt the chill of the damp spot on her breast even as the heat of his mouth enveloped the other nipple. But not for long, because the chill was replaced by another hot mouth that continued the job. The dual pleasure was shocking and left her breathless as she opened wide eyes to see a calloused, long-fingered hand cupping her breast with the mouthed palm right over her nipple. Sakura looked up to Blondie's face, his own heated gaze intently focused on her breast in his palm. The image made her shudder and close her eyes against the sight. A miscalculation, because now no visuals distracted her from the most intense pleasure she'd ever experienced on her breasts, which were being suckled, licked, and nibbled on through her lacy black bra.

The sensation went straight to her core, and she felt the wetness spreading through her panties. To relieve the building pressure, she ground her thighs together and squirmed, only to open her eyes in shock as Blue's big, warm hand moved daringly from her hip to her inner thigh, holding it open. Pretty boy took the opportunity to press his hips closer to hers, barely keeping an inch of teasing space between them, even as Blue's fingers started stroking up and down her inner thigh, veering dangerously close to her mound. The teasing, tantalizing movement against sensitive skin made her hips buck in an effort to bring his skilled touch closer to her sweet spot, but he stilled his fingers until she stopped moving. Only then did the large hand resume the feather-light touches that skirted the edge of her panties and kept Sakura on the cliff's edge of her control.

Pretty Boy's mouth finally moved up from his skillful ministrations of her breast up her neck to hover above her face. Blondie took advantage to move his hand over to the recently freed breast and his own face to the other one, using two of his mouths in a synchronized, spectacular assault. As Sakura gasped at the sensation, Pretty Boy smirked and took her lips in his own. His kiss was wild, hard, and just what she needed. Her need peaked as she kissed him back just as fiercely, nipping on his lip and letting her tongue wrestle with his for dominance. Suddenly, the large hand on her thigh slipped up and firmly, possessively cupped her through her tights and panties. The hot, sudden sensation  _just_  where she needed it combined with a particularly hard bite on her lip from Pretty Boy was too much—she moaned, loud and low in her throat, and bucked into the hand holding her so intimately.

Their movement froze at the sound, Pretty Boy withdrawing his mouth from hers with a soft, damp sound, Blondie pausing in his sucking on her nipple to glance up at her, and the hand on her crotch stilling. As one, the three men looked at each other, then at her, hooded, dark gazes revealing a hunger that should have scared her. Beyond reason and caring for nothing but the  _need_  running through her body, Sakura frustratedly squirmed in their grasp. "Don't stop why did you stop,  _more,_ dammit!" she gasped wildly.

The Jashinist stilled further, looking into her eyes as if to make sure he'd heard her correctly. "Better be sure what you're asking for, bitch. Because once we start, we aint fucking stopping for anything, so be sure you don't change your mind and pussy out on us in the last minute. I don't think I could fucking take that, goddamn."

Impatiently, Sakura looked up at him, but sobered up at his look. He was breathing heavily, clearly on the last string of his restraint, and seemed like he might snap any moment. To think that this volatile, beautiful man was holding back this depth of desire just for her was intoxicating, and slightly scary. Glancing up, she saw a similar, almost pained look on Blue's face over her shoulder, while Blondie's face held only dark, sensuous promise. Her body throbbed at the sudden stop in stimuli, and she realized that if she let this stop now, she'd probably never forgive herself. So throwing caution to the wind, she grinned cockily at the men surrounding her.

"I've never been so sure in my life. Now touch me, dammit, before I take matters into my own hands." At this, her hand moved towards the waistband of her tights, fully intending to relieve herself on her own if these men decided to chicken out. Her wrist was suddenly grabbed in a strong grip.

"Ohh, you asked for it, Princess," chuckled the Jashinist darkly, as her wrists were dragged behind her by Big Blue, who easily held them in one hand. "That's all we fucking needed to hear." With those words, he swooped down and with a single motion ripped her bra in half, freeing her breasts from its confines. Before they even had time to bounce twice, his mouth and tongue and teeth were upon them, the direct skin contact shooting through her body like an arrow. With a dark sound of masculine amusement, Blondie took the opportunity to cradle her face in his hand and turn it towards him, kissing her passionately, sliding his tongue along hers and thoroughly exploring her mouth. Helpless beneath such an assault, Sakura could only moan in the back of her throat and press closer against them. She hardly noticed as big hands divested her of her skirt and tights until she was just in her panties and the giant, warm hand returned to cup her through the lacy fabric. She heard a low, animalistic growl behind her as Blue's fingers encountered the dampness through her panties, and he pressed his fingers against her opening in an unmistakably possessive gesture. The sensation was indescribable and just what Sakura needed, nearly climaxing right there and then.

Instead, she mewled into Blondie's mouth and tried to escape the almost too-intense feeling by pressing her hips back, only to encounter an impressive hardness behind her. At the sensation, Sakura momentarily stilled. That was...intimidatingly large. It appeared that Big Blue was aptly nicknamed by her. She suppressed a nervous giggle. His hands moved to her hips, freeing her wrists and leaving her feel an emptiness between her legs, as he pushed her hips to grind her ass back against him, leaving her with no mistake as to the accuracy of his size. Any urge to laugh disappeared, and Sakura was torn between apprehension and appreciation.

The kunoichi was quickly distracted from her panic when Pretty Boy took advantage of the empty space to press his hips fully into hers, aligning his own impressive hardness with her most intimate spot. The scorching heat and hardness that she felt even through the layers of clothing made her close her eyes and moan into Blondie's mouth, a sound he eagerly swallowed and followed with his own growl as his mouthed hands explored her torso with a series of kisses and love bites.

Sakura was lost in the sensation of two men rocking against her from both sides, the hot mouth on her breast, and the lips and tongue assailing her mouth. Her need skyrocketed until all she could do was moan and whimper breathlessly as she tried to ride out the sensations. Her own hands raised and trailed delicate fingers up from where Pretty Boy's hips were grounding into her own, up his rock-solid abs without an ounce of fat on them, past the perfectly smooth skin of his rolling shoulders, and dug sharply into his hair as he worshiped her breasts. At that, he gave a purely masculine groan, and doubled his efforts.

Blondie chose that moment to separate from her swollen lips with a soft 'plop' and moved to her ear, licking the lobe, biting it, and blowing on the damp skin. Sakura's chin was taken by a large blue hand and tipped up so her mouth could meet the kiss of the blue giant behind her as he rocked his hips into her round, shapely ass. Sakura groaned a satisfied sound of approval that she didn't even know she could make into Blue's kiss, making him nip her bottom lip carefully with his sharp teeth as he smiled into her mouth.

In a moment, Pretty Boy's hips were replaced by his hand over her panties as he tested out how wet she was.

"Hot damn, Princess, you're fucking soaked!"

Blondie lifted his head from her neck at that, "Oh? Let's see it, yeah!"

His hand slid down her flat stomach to her mound, and slipped beneath her panties. Sakura gasped at the sensation and arched into his fingers, which found her clit with unerring precision and stroked around it, adding even more to the dampness against the priest's fingers. With a growl, he took one side of the panties while Blondie took the other, and together they ripped the piece of fabric clean off her body.

The three men paused again to take in the sight before them. Sakura's newly evenly trimmed pubic hair was pink like her hair, soft and nearly invisible against her flushed, delicate skin. Their eyes wandered over a flat, toned stomach, perky breasts with pebbled nipples that were a shade darker than her hair. She looked up at them with dilated eyes and a soft, swollen mouth as her desire eclipsed any self-consciousness of being stared at by three gorgeous men.

"Fuck," breathed out the Jashinist as he stared at her in awe.

"A natural Pinkie, who would have thought, un," agreed Blondie.

"You're fucking perfect," growled out Blue in approval.

The last words jolted the three men out of their reverie and they descended once more upon her. The Shark-man brought her chin up once more to ravage her mouth thoroughly, sliding his tongue in and out of her mouth in wet, indecent imitation of a more base act. The white-haired sadist ducked down and started nibbling his way up her inner thigh, while his hands stroked light circles behind Sakura's sensitive knees. Blondie nuzzled his nose against her neck, inhaling her scent as his hand splayed possessively over her clit, the lips on his palm brushing against it. His tongue peeked out to tease the hood, once, and then in a bold move passed firmly and wetly over her clit. Sakura spasmed in their arms, the sensation making her wild and desperate for more. Smiling into her neck, Blondie kept her bucking hips down with one hand while the other focused on licking, probing, and mercilessly stimulating her sensitive clit. He seemed to know just how much pressure she needed, alternating between long, smooth strokes of the tongue and full-mouthed, wet sucks. It didn't take long for Sakura to be straining against them, close to orgasm as her moans and breathy gasps echoed helplessly in the room, muffled by Blue's mouth pillaging her own.

Pretty Boy noticed her becoming restless and used one hand to help Blondie keep her hips in place against her squirming and Blue's rocking from behind. He finally, tortuously, moved his hot mouth up from her soft inner thigh and pressed a hard kiss against her opening. Sakura gasped, tearing away from Blue's mouth to look downat the white-haired head between her thighs. He grinned and winked at her from next to Blondie's still-working hand, and then flattened his tongue against her nether lips, tasting the sweet sweet liquid leaking out. His eyes closed, he shuddered, and delved in with his tongue again, sucking deeper.

"Fucking delicious," he growled, as he lapped at her opening like it was his own private spring of nectar. Sakura moaned unashamedly and rolled her head back into Blue's broad chest as the sensation of two mouths, one on her clit and one at her entrance, nearly sent her over the edge. Her world was covered in a hot white haze and she knew she was going to come soon. She bucked harder against the lips on her pussy, and Pretty Boy obliged by thrusting his tongue as deep as it would go inside her, invading her obscenely, fighting against her tight inner muscles. Sakura cried out, flexing her fingers in the white hair of the man between her legs. He growled and removed his tongue only to replace it with two long fingers, which he thrust straight into her opening and twisted. He found her spot easily, and his fingers rolled against it once, twice, and sunk all the way inside her to the third knuckle. The feeling of absolute fullness, the delicious invasion of her space combined with the tongue pressing against her clit pushed her over the edge.

With a silent cry, Sakura's world exploded and she shuddered into orgasm. Just as she did, two sets of teeth on either side of her, one from Blondie and one a decidedly sharper one from Blue, sunk into her neck, the sudden pain only elevating her pleasure. Her breath came in shuddering gasps and her legs shook against the firm grip the men had on her body.

It seemed like she had blacked out for a second, because when she came to, she saw Pretty Boy lazily lapping away at the fluids that had soaked her entrance in her orgasm, while Blue and Blondie were soothing away the teeth marks they had made on her neck with soft kisses and licks. All three of them turned to look at her when she raised her head, their expressions supremely self-satisfied.

It took her a couple tries, but finally she expressed her feeling in a single word.

"…Wow," she breathed dreamily.

The three men chuckled, looking rather smug about her incoherence. She found she couldn't move for the moment and was content to lay there in their arms for a while.

As her world drifted back together after the earth-shattering orgasm, her mind sharpened and the haze of alcohol finally lifted. Opening her eyes, her gaze caught on a cloak flung carelessly over one chair by the fireplace, that she hadn't noticed earlier: black with a red cloud design.

_Wait._

Red clouds…that seemed familiar. She'd been briefed on this earlier, she was sure of it. Her mind strained against the haze of her buzz, determined to smooth out this wrinkle in her memory.

Then— _Akatsuki._

That one word opened up a flood of associations, her sharp mind unlocking the details as if reading from a brief.  _S-Rank criminal organization. Pursuing the Bijuu. Nearly killed Gaara, as reported by Suna three years ago. Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha clan murderer, a member. Attacked Naruto once on his mission with Jiraya years ago, Sasuke got a broken arm and Tsukiyomi._ Trying to control her breathing and growing panic so as not to give herself away, Sakura glanced over at Big Blue, as she'd dubbed him before in her mind.  _Hochigaku Kisame. Mising-nin from Mist, massive chakra reserves, chakra-devouring sword, one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, Uchiha Itachi's partner. Nearly killed Naruto._ She nearly whimpered as she realized he was back to slowly licking her neck, soothing the sting of his sharp bite moments before. Instead of being soothed, now all she could focus on were those sharp teeth so close to her jugular.

Gulping softly, she focused on 'Blondie', who was sprawled half on her and half on Kisame, nuzzling her ear (and kami, she was never going to live these nicknames down).  _Deidara, Missing-Nin from Iwa. S-Rank, naturally, dubs himself an 'artist' and blows things up for fun. Has a bloodlimit that involves manipulating and exploding clay, usually in the form of sculptures. Would have killed Gaara three years ago, had it not been for Chiyo's and his siblings' intervention._ Sakura herself had been in training for ANBU at the time and heard about the incident a week after it happened. The old Suna poison expert had died at the hand of his partner, her own grandson Sasori, while Gaara and his siblings had barely gotten out alive.

Finally, she turned her gaze to the last member of the group, who was still lounging lazily between her thighs, his lips still swollen and damp with her fluid, with an expression of supreme self-satisfaction on his face. Her face turned white as she realized that the man she'd called Pretty Boy was actually Hidan, apparently immortal, sadistic, masochistic priest of a malevolent deity, who regularly made sacrifices and could kill a person if he had even a drop of their blood on his scythe.

Deidara was the first to notice her breathing speeding up and stiffening posture, and drew back with a flicker of—was that concern?—in his eyes. "Hey Pinky, what's the matter, un? Shark got your tongue?" he tried to joke, hoping to calm her down from whatever thoughts seemed to have shaken her. The words had the opposite effect, in that they woke Sakura from her frozen state. With a choked, panicked whimper, she pushed her limbs against the three men, subconsciously channeling chakra through them, and tossed them aside like they were half her size. In the same motion, she flipped to her feet and fled to the other side of the room with the speed worthy of a shunshin.

The three Akatsuki members were stunned momentarily, especially Deidara, who had hit his head hard on a stone step, before their eyes narrowed.

" _Kunoichi,"_  Hidan growled, his eyes darkening not with desire but bloodlust, as he realized their little pink-haired morsel was an unknown shinobi. "Can't believe we let our guard down. Trying to fucking assassinate the great and powerful Hidan? Whatever fuckface gave you this mission sent you out here to die. At least," he grinned wildly, viciously, "we got to have a little fun before you meet Jashin-sama and suffer for your heresy." His eyes tracked over her body blatantly, and Sakura realized with a start that she was buck-naked in front of these S-Class criminals.

Looking desperately around for something to wrap around herself, the only thing she saw was the Akatsuki cloak that had triggered her memory earlier. Grabbing it, she stammered, "well, uh, this has been fun, but mother always told me not to hang out with  _S-Class Criminals_  so I have to run. Bye!" With these words, slightly hysterical, she performed a kawarimi with a log just outside the compound- just in time, too, as a dozen kunai impaled it all the way through to the wall as soon as she disappeared.

 

 

**A/N: While it may be surprising that they didn't realize she was a shinobi earlier, remember that she has rather low, tightly controlled chakra, and the alcohol dulled her responses to a civilian level. Also...what kind of ninja has pink hair? It's not too much of a stretch to believe they let their guard down. They can afford to- they're Akatsuki.**


	5. Evaporation

 

As soon as she was outside, Sakura sprinted towards the mountains, faster than she had in ages. She might have ANBU training, Kakashi as her sensei, and Tsunade's sadistic training under her belt, but she was under no illusions that she could out-run three Akatsuki members, people who had been S-Rank since she was a measly little genin. Therefore, she made three shadow clones mid-leap and sent them to three different directions, while masking her own chakra to near zero (desperately grateful for her shishou's training and the perfect chakra control she'd been born with) and slipped back in the direction of the inn, taking a looping, circuitous path. When she came upon one of the hot springs about half a mile away from the inn, Sakura decided to hunker down there for a while.

One, it would be much warmer than hiding somewhere in the mountains and dying of hypothermia while she waited for the Akatsuki to follow her false trails far enough. Two, they wouldn't think to look for her so close to where she'd fled from, making this the perfect hiding spot. And three, the steam rising from the springs created a thick cover for her to hide behind, if she kept to the outcropping of rocks on one edge of the spring. Thus decided, Sakura plopped down on one such rock, dipping her feet in the hot water and checking herself for kunai nicks. It seemed she had escaped unscathed, if only with her dignity in shatters.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_! She berated herself.  _Good going, Sakura. Not only did you drink in unknown, possibly hostile territory before making sure it was safe, but you cozied up to and made out with the worst possible people you could find on this earth!_  
  
 **Well…Not the worst people on earth. It could be worse- they could be ugly** , popped up a voice she hadn't heard in a while.

 _Shut up, Inner! I can't believe I almost fell into their clutches like that. Never. Drinking. Again._  
  
 **From what I saw, you did more than fall into their clutches, sweetie** , Sakura could just hear Inner smirking.

… _That was a mistake. Temporary insanity.  
_  
 **Oh, don't pretend you didn't enjoy every second of it. Trust you to freak out the first time you have some fun in your life.  
**  
 _Hey! I have fun!_  
  
 **Yeah** , Inner snorted,  **One quick, unsatisfying tumble with Sasuke-kun**  (Inner had an annoying tendency to mockingly squeal his name every time it came up- she really didn't like him)  **when he returned, then the most boring six-month relationship ever with that guy made of cardboard—**

 _Hey, Aratou wasn't that boring! He was an ANBU captain, and just because I fell asleep ONCE on him doesn't mean_ — **Don't you mean Arekou?—** _That's what I meant!...ok, point taken—  
_  
 **And then,**  Inner continued as if Sakura hadn't interrupted,  **you decided that sex was just not for you and that the success of a mission was more than enough to make you happy.  
**  
 _It's not that I thought it made me happy, I just decided to wait until I really met the one, which clearly turned out to not be Sasuke-kun—_  
  
 **It seems to me you just found three ''the one''s,** she could feel Inner smirk.

_Oh please, in case you didn't notice, those guys tried to kill me as soon as they found out I was a kunoichi!_

**Eh, details. From what I could see, nobody tried to kill anyone until you had your little freak-out. In fact, you were thoroughly enjoying yourself for the first time in months if not years, sugar.  
**  
… _That's beside the point. No matter how attractive they may be_ — **a-hah, you admit it!—** _they're still criminals who are after my best friend, and would sooner kill me than look at me now._  
  
 **Naruto can take care of himself. Anyways, by all accounts they haven't gone after the bijuu in two years now. They've been laying low aside from their usual mayhem, from what the grapevine has mentioned.**  
  
What? How do you know that? I never heard of it…

 **You've been busy trying not to get killed by that creeper Danzo, babe. I'm a manifestation of your subconscious, so of course I notice a lot more than you do.**  
  
…Oh. I never thought of it like that. I thought I was just crazy.

 **You are** , snorted Inner,  **But not because of me. If anything, I'm the one that handles that too-big brain of yours into manageable levels and prevents you from going berserk from all the trauma ninja usually acquire.**  
  
Oh…thanks.

 **You're welcome, bitch. Anyways, as for your other reason- why the hell would they try to kill you? By the last account, they very much enjoyed your body just the way it was- alive**. Sakura could just feel Inner's snigger as they both replayed just how she'd gotten her first orgasm that wasn't self-induced. What a way to dive in.

Sakura suppressed the blush and shiver that accompanied the memory, suddenly feeling rather bereft.

 _They're Akatsuki though! They're missing nin, criminals!  
_  
 **Big words coming from someone who fled her village, faked her death, and is now on the run without a place to go.**  
  
... _Point_.

 **The way I see it, you've been given an in. You're technically a missing-nin, you know it's only a matter of time before Danzo finds out you're alive. They're missing nin, and strong ones at that. Seems like a win-win scenario.**  
  
 _How so?_ Sakura asked skeptically

 **Win for them in that they get a kick-ass medic with super-strength on their side, win for you in that you get the weight of a badass super-villain organization behind you, and win for me in that I get to be surrounded by eye-candy all day.**  
  
You're incorrigible, laughed Sakura incredulously

 **Damn straight! One of us has to have some fun around here**. With that, she got the impression of a wink back, then a brief feeling of alarm – **Oh shit, look out!**  
  
Sakura had the barest of warnings before she heard the whistle of a weapon through the air, and bounced off the rock just before it was split in half by a giant scaly sword.

 _Still think they're not trying to kill me?_ She thought drily to Inner, who didn't respond: the time for banter was over. She narrowly avoided another swing of the sword before jumping to a higher outcropping of rock.

"What the hell is your problem?" Sakura yelled at Kisame, whose teeth gleamed at her in the darkness as he snarled.

"Just trying to kill the kunoichi who wanted to fucking assassinate us. I knew that situation was way too good to be true." He swung again, but not before Sakura caught the glimpse of fury and…hurt? in his eyes. To be taken off-guard like that had clearly shocked him.

"What the hell are you talking about," she desperately evaded another swing, "I didn't even know who you were until I saw your stupid cloak! How the hell did you find me, anyways?"

"'That stupid cloak', as you called it, is mine, and Samehada here," he swung the aforementioned sword through the rock cliff she was standing on, forcing her to jump onto another one, "senses my chakra on it even if you suppressed your own, little kunoichi."

Sakura cursed to herself. She should have known that taking one of their cloaks like that was a bad idea. Still, better than staying naked and vulnerable in front of missing nin.

"So what, just because I'm a kunoichi you assume I was out to murder you? Trust me, finding out that I was in the arms of three Akatsuki was no walk in the park either!"

"Well why the hell did you pretend to be a civilian then!"

"It's not my fault you didn't realize I was a ninja too! I never hid the fact at all!"

"Oh yeah, 'cause pink-haired little girls are such a typical fucking ninja, especially ones who get drunk and helpless in strange places," Kisame smirked.

"I'm not a little girl!"

"Oh trust me Kitten, I noticed."

"And," here it was Sakura's turn to smirk as she deflected Kisame's blow with a chakra-laden fist and punched him away from her, "Clearly I wasn't helpless after all, seeing as I escaped when I wanted to."

"See? You're admitting that you were hired to seduce and kill us!"

"What the hell are you implying!" Sakura bristled and threw another volley of senbon and kunai at Kisame as he blocked them with his sword, "I don't do those types of missions, and I don't like your insinuations!"

"Why else would you agree to all that with us then?!" Kisame bellowed, sending a wave of water in her direction.

"BECAUSE I WANTED TO, ALRIGHT!" Sakura burst out, and blocked the wave with a quick earth jutsu that created a high wall of stone between her and Kisame.

Silence.

Sakura jumped onto her wall with a bit of chakra and saw that Kisame wasn't moving to attack anymore. Instead, a slow, incredulous grin was spreading over his face.

"So…you're saying you weren't hired to kill us."

"That's right," Sakura replied, waiting for the next attack and shifting her weight impatiently.

"Or to seduce us."

"I already said that." A vein in her forehead pulsed.

"And you didn't know who we were…Come to think of it, you look familiar. Pink hair, I'm assuming Konoha by your dialect, though no hitae-ate, chakra-enhanced strength…holy shit, you're Senju Tsunade's apprentice! Haruno Sakura, was it?"

"And the sky is blue, and dango is delicious. What's your point, Shark boy?" Growled Sakura, getting impatient with his obvious questions and antsy at the fact that he wasn't attacking her.  
What sort of mind games was he trying to play?

"My point is…you're a fucking medic."

"There you go again with the obvious," she replied, bored.

"We need a fucking medic."

"That's nice for you, now can we please fight already? I got places to go, people to see, you understand how it goes."

"…No."

"No, you don't understand how it goes?"

"No, I'm not gonna fight you."

Sakura gaped.

"Why not?" She was surprised to hear it come out as a whine. But really. It had been a while since she got to let off some steam with a good fight, and she wanted to see how she'd fare against an S-rank opponent- especially one that suddenly seemed a bit less murderous. After that unbelievable, eventful night, she definitely needed that fight more than ever. Maybe then she could stop appreciating his powerful physique despite the fact he was trying to kill her. Or not kill her, now. Confusing man.

Fortunately, at this point the sounds of their fight had drawn in Deidara and Hidan, who, upon seeing Sakura, both added on a burst of speed and, scythe and explosive clay in hand, were ready to pounce upon her…only to be blocked by Kisame's bulk and sword. Deidara hurriedly withdrew the chakra from the clay in his hands lest he explode the three of them, and exploded verbally instead, "What the hell, Kisame, un!"

"Just preventing our new medic from dying prematurely," grinned Kisame back.

"What the…that's it. He's finally cracked, un," Deidara said, lost. In his bewilderment, he lowered his arms and paused in his clay molding.

Hidan, however, merely growled and tried to go around him to get to Sakura, his attention zeroed in on the pink-haired kunoichi with single-minded bloodlust. Kisame managed to grab him by the shoulder and throw him onto the shore, following after. Every time the Jashinist made a move to attack Sakura, Kisame pushed him back with his sword, his fists, or a kunai through the heart, which the Hidan would simply pull out carelessly like an annoying needle and attack again, healing ten times faster than even Naruto.

Deidara then shook out of his stupor and began to circle Sakura again, his hands molding clay and gathering chakra. "I don't know what you said to him, you fucking assassin, but you better find a way to undo his crazy unless you want to die more painfully, un." He growled darkly, and launched a bomb at her, only for her to switch out with another log and appear farther up on the shore, near the tree line.

"I didn't do anything!" Sakura cried, bewildered at the attack, "It's you people who keep making assumptions about me!"

"Silence! I'm not going to listen to the same lies that even turned our own partner against us, un!" Deidara yelled, enraged, and jumped to the shore himself, throwing a flurry of kunai at Sakura. She deflected them, and they embedded themselves into the ground around her feet. Eyes widening, she noticed that their handles were coated in clay, and made to dive to the side just as a huge explosion shook the clearing.

As the smoke cleared, Deidara turned back to Kisame and Hidan, who had stopped their fighting to stare at the charred crater left from the explosion, the first with horror in his eyes and the latter with a quickly-calming bloodlust at the apparent death of his target.

"Now…What the hell was that, Sharkface, un?"

Kisame's face was darkening like a thundercloud.

"You IDIOT! Don't you listen to me? You know who that girl was?"

"Some assassin on an infiltration mission, does it matter who she is?"

"Kami help me, I'm surrounded by idiots. That was the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade of the Sannin's apprentice, Haruno Sakura! Used to be leaf, only now after that Danzo guy's takeover she's been listed in the bingo books as dead. That's the only reason I didn't recognize her right away. Don't you fucking read those?"

"Okay, so I haven't had a chance to update mine in a while, so fucking what? If she's meant to be dead I just made sure it was real, who cares, un?"

"If she's listed as dead, and isn't, you moron, that means that she probably defected. As in she's a missing nin. As in, you fuckface, there was no mission for her to assassinate us."

Deidara's face first gaped in surprise at Kisame's unusually vehement cursing and then paled rapidly at the implications of his words. Hidan made the connection.

"So—you mean—that hot ass kunoichi wasn't trying to seduce us for a mission?"

"That's right," Kisame sighed heavily, suddenly tired.

"God fucking damnit," breathed Hidan. "So the chick we just killed was actually into us? But then why the fuck did she attack us in the hotel room?" He challenged.

"Because," Kisame pinched the bridge of his nose, "She had been too tired and tipsy to recognize who we were until she saw my Akatsuki cloak in the room. Then I figure she freaked out because she thought we'd kill her or whatever and ran off."

"So…" Deidara's voice was small, "She wasn't getting paid to seduce us, un? She actually wanted it, yeah?"

"Yeah," answered Kisame, depressed, "On top of that, she's a world renowned medic apprenticed under the Sannin Tsunade, and is said to have surpassed even her in skill. That's why I wanted to recruit her."

"You think she could heal Itachi?"

"I was hoping, at least," sighed Kisame.

"Damn, un. We really fucked up, huh?"

"We fucked up? Fucking you fucked up, I wasn't the one who fucking blew her up!" Hidan snapped defensively.

"Oh like you weren't doing your best to kill her anyways, un!"

"At least I'm not the fuckface who actually did kill her, goddamn!"

"So what?"

"So—"

As their bickering threatened to come to blows, neither noticed the gradually growing killing intent emanating from the edge of the explosion site. Hidan, spiritual as he was, was the one who noticed it first.

His face turned hopeful as the killing intent spiked, and out from the ground crawled first an arm, then the shoulder, then a dirt-covered, furious Sakura in a torn cloak that revealed some…interesting bits of skin.

"I. Am. So. SICK. And. TIRED. Of. People. Trying. To. Kill. Me." Growled her voice, cutting off the bickering of the two Akatsuki as they stared at her like a ghost come to life. She had used the head-hunter jutsu Kakashi had taught her long ago in the nick of time, only to realize that she didn't know how to get out of it other than digging her way out. Which was not fun. Especially when it was the fault of these assholes who thought it was a good idea to attack her on a shitty day like this. After giving her the best orgasm of her life. Jerks.

"Pinkie!" Cheered Deidara, turning a complete 180 in his attitude, "You're alive!"

He took a step towards her, only to cower back as she gave him a death glare that only Leader-sama could match.

"You," was the only word snarled out, but with such vehemence that Deidara shrank back and Hidan and Kisame could only stare with admiration.

"I don't care who you are, S-rank criminal or the Shinigami himself. I've had enough. One night. ONE NIGHT I would have liked to forget about all the fucked up shit that's been happening to me and relax, but  _No_! I just had to pick the one bar with psycho missing-nin who would give me the best orgasm of my life and then call me a prostitute and an assassin the next. I've had it! Just. Leave. Me. ALONE!"

With that last word, yelled like an expletive, Sakura gathered chakra in her fist and, with unerring precision, punched down through the ground. The earth shook, and the ground violently exploded under the Akatsuki members' feet. They were caught off guard, still underestimating the pink-haired ninja, and didn't jump away. The blow threw the three of them off their feet like rag dolls, and they were knocked on their backs in the resulting crater, the size of a small stadium and several meters deep. Eyes wide, they stared at the small form on the opposite side of the crater, standing on the edge with the torn Akatsuki cloak fluttering in the wind.

"Hot damn," breathed Hidan, "That was the hottest thing I've ever fucking seen."

"What a masterpiece, un," agreed Deidara.

Apparently Sakura could still hear them even from such a distance because she gave a little scream of frustration and started walking off in the direction of the inn, grumbling under her breath. She needed to get her pack and continue on her journey, and forget about this ridiculous night. Steam apparently let off, Sakura just wanted to get as far away from the confusing, contradictory, frustrating missing nin behind her as possible.

Unfortunately for her, the little strength demonstration had only fueled the fire of their determination to keep her with them.

With barely a breeze against her skin, the three Akatsuki were suddenly walking alongside her, grinning widely. If there was a darker appreciation and a glint of lust in their eyes just then, Sakura chose to ignore it.

"And where are you going, Pinkie?" Asked Deidara, swinging his arm around her shoulders like they were the best of friends.

"Don't really care, as long as it's away from you," Sakura retorted, ducking out from under his arm as he made a dramatic wounded motion, only to bump into Hidan's bare chest with her escape. She jumped away as if scalded, then pretended to be unaffected and kept walking at a faster pace. Their longer strides easily kept up with her.

"Damn, that's hurtful, yeah," Deidara laughed.

"I don't mind a little pain," Hidan sidled in, leering at Sakura.

"Oh perfect, because have I got a whole bunch coming your way," said Sakura drolly.

"Knew you were fucking perfect, Princess," he replied, taking the response as an invitation as he placed a warm hand on the back of her neck, his thumb stroking behind her ear. Sakura pretended the possessive motion didn't send a jolt through her, and pulled away again, hiding behind Kisame.

"Trust me, this kind of pain you're not going to enjoy," she tried, only for a smirk to grow on his face.

"That a challenge?"

Kisame muttered to her, "Stop encouraging him before he decides to elope with you, Kitten. In Hidan's book, all pain is good pain."

Sakura's eyes widened and she nodded in thanks at the blue man, sticking by his side since he was the only one not trying to get all touchy feely with her. Her head barely reached his ribcage, yet she felt surprisingly safe beside him. As she pulled a little bit closer to him and to the body heat radiating off him, chasing off the chill of the night, she missed his smug look to his companions. They scowled.

"Really though, where is it that a master medic and A-rank kunoichi like yourself is going, and without your hitae-ate at that?" Kisame asked, fishing for an in.

Sakura sighed heavily.

"Oh cut the crap, I already heard your explanation to the other two here." Kakashi had taught her how to channel chakra to her ears and nose, especially during battles- never know when it might save your life. Or, as Ino had corrected her once, snoop for the best gossip.

"So it's true?" Kisame inquired, his two companions leaning in eagerly, "You're a missing-nin now? How the hell did it happen?"

"Long story short, Danzo is a dickhead and decided to have me assassinated as a power move. Luckily for me, I was prepared and was able to escape and fake my death with the help of some friends." Sakura turned pensive as she thought back to Kakashi-Sensei and the others who'd helped her. She hoped her survival would be kept secret long enough for them to either firm up their alibis or escape as well.

"Welcome to the club, Pinkie," Deidara's voice brought her to the present. "Regime changes are one of the most common ways people have to turn missing nin after all. Loyalty is no good if it's to the wrong people in a village."

Sakura startled at the unexpected insight from the loud blonde, having thought to him to be somewhat similar to Naruto in intellect as well as temper.

"That…actually makes a lot of sense," she murmured. "I suppose I never really thought of what might drive a ninja to go rogue, just kind of assumed they were all evil."

Hidan chuckled, "Oh believe it princess, most of us are hardly the do-gooder pansies Konoha likes to brag about. But it's also not as one dimensional as those fucking village politics and academy lessons make it seem."

"Yeah, most of that is propaganda because nobody wants a weapon without a master," Kisame joined, "Only problem is, they forget the fact that we're also fucking human and more complex than just order-following machines," his voice turning bitter. Sakura was silent as she pondered this insight, and the three Akatsuki were content to walk alongside her as she mulled over the implications.

In her career as a ninja, Sakura had little reason for questioning orders. For all that Kakashi-sensei had preached about looking underneath the underneath, Sakura had never applied that to her own village leadership until Tsunade had fled and Danzo had taken over. In the academy, she was too worried about fitting in and her clanless background to question anything—rather the opposite, her excellent memory and tendency towards perfectionism had led her to be quite the teacher's pet. Then she was placed onto the politically valuable, powerhouse team where she was sheltered by her strong teammates and their reputations from being treated as disposable as most ninja in reality were.

Then, she lucked out by being apprenticed to Tsunade of the Sannin- while her chakra control and encyclopedic memory were certainly bonuses, it was this connection that granted her extra favoritism. When she was 16, Tsunade had claimed she had nothing more to teach her, and Sakura had joined the ANBU simply because of their reputation. While those had been two incredibly difficult years that she felt immensely proud of, it was also a brutally strict hierarchy that didn't tolerate any questioning of orders or disobedience. And with her super-strength, expert healing skills, and connections to the Hokage, she was never treated as expendable as some of the lower-level ANBU. Not that she hadn't clawed her way towards mastery on her own merits and hard work, but she realized that through a stroke of luck that began with her placement on Team 7, she had been treated much more favorably than many other ninja in the village.

After Danzo's takeover, things had changed so rapidly that she'd been left reeling and uncertain of her place. Her previously valued loyalty to Tsunade, her mentor and the Hokage, was now something to conceal. Many of the orders Danzo had made upon being instated in office had seemed so ludicrous to her that she'd hardly needed to think before going around or against his wishes. For example, with the recruitment of young orphans to join the academy early- she'd gone around and gotten more than half of them in foster care, which meant they could only be recruited with the consent of their guardians. The rest had cited some sort of illness to prevent them from an early ninja career. As she was the medic in charge of verifying this 'illness', Danzo had seen through her move easily but could do nothing publicly, since she was such a well-respected figure in the village. Of course, it was defiance like this which eventually led him to order her assassination.

Him being such an obvious villain, however, had made her completely disassociate his manipulations from actions of the village as a whole. But now that she thought about it, he had been acting from behind the scenes far longer than she'd been alive. Danzo had been an influential voice in the village for years, so how radical were his actions, truly, if he was an old player of the game? Perhaps, Sakura thought with a jolt, what he was doing now was simply a more transparent version of what Konoha had been subtly carrying through for decades, and she'd simply had no reason to question it.

Until this point, Sakura hadn't even seriously considered herself a missing-nin, though technically she knew that's exactly what she was. While she'd been lucky enough to grow up under two apparently benevolent Hokages, in the end that was clearly not a guarantee. What would have happened if she'd been born in the Bloody Mist, she thought, glancing at Kisame, or Sound under Orochimaru? Wouldn't defecting from a place like that be justified? The Shinobi Handbook would definitively state, NO to that question, and for the first time that bothered her.

 


	6. Dew

 

The Akatsuki members were quiet throughout Sakura's musings until they got to the inn. Sakura walked right up to the wall of the building and kept walking with a bare application of chakra to the window, still absorbed in her thoughts. Looking at the room, she felt disoriented by how much things had changed since she was last in it: from the most exquisite pleasure she'd ever felt to mind-stopping terror, to the thrill of a good fight and a tilted worldview. Shaking her head, she took care to avoid looking at the soft fur carpet that had been witness to her moment of vulnerability and picked up her pack.

Ignoring the Akatsuki that had jumped in through the window after her with a silent breeze, Sakura quickly dug a fresh pair of panties out from the bag and put them on under the cloak, instantly feeling less vulnerable. She then picked up her shirt and tights from the floor and put them on, determinedly ignoring the sigh of appreciation that escaped the lips of the men when she took off the cloak to do so.

She'd never had a problem with nudity: as a shinobi, being comfortable and confident in your own skin was a necessity. However, the only scrutiny she'd really paid it since she was twelve and crushing over Sasuke was how effective a weapon her body was. Sakura had given up her diet once she became chuunin, especially once she realized that her body already didn't naturally bulk up and give her as much strength as other kunoichi, much less male shinobi. While she'd overcome this through chakra enhancement later, frivolous concerns about curves and womanhood had taken a backburner to not getting killed in action.

This appreciative, masculine attention made her feel a bit self-conscious, but she quickly shrugged it off. Wasn't her problem if they got distracted. And the appreciation didn't exactly hurt the small bit of feminine pride she'd buried deep inside.

With a small sniff, she shouldered her pack again and tossed the torn up cloak back at Kisame.

"Well, it's been…" Sakura trailed off, uncertain of how to describe the night. "Anyways," she hastily said, "I'll be off. Places to be, people to see…"

Hidan didn't bother to suppress a snort at the bald-faced lie. Sakura flushed despite herself. "Well, at any rate, at least I'll be rid of you!" She retorted somewhat childishly, and, feeling inexplicably annoyed, turned to leave.

"And where are you going, un?" Deidara's voice drawled behind her, the tone enough to make her bristle and stop.

"None of your fucking business," she snapped back.

"It could be." Kisame's quiet voice made her turn around.

"Oh?" she arched an eyebrow.

"Like I said…we need a medic. Why not join us?"

Sakura laughed out loud.

"Oh please, like you wouldn't kill me first chance you got." Seeing Deidara's mouth open in protest, she continued quickly, "Besides, even if I was crazy enough to actually want to, I'm supposed to be dead right now. Hanging out with the biggest criminal nin organization in the world isn't exactly lying low. How fast do you think Danzo would condemn those who helped me escape, and send better-skilled assassins after me?"

Kisame's eyes glimmered with comprehension, and he bowed his head even as Deidara mutinously muttered, "we would protect you though, yeah."

The shark-man did have one objection, however. "One thing you're wrong about though, Kitten." Sakura turned back to look at him again. "We wouldn't kill you now, not anymore."

Sakura gave a disbelieving snort, and he defended, "No, really! We don't have a reason to kill you- if anything you'd be a valuable asset. Your skills are legendary, we'd have tried to seek you out eventually even if you hadn't so conveniently dropped into our laps." Here he leered.

She valiantly suppressed a pleased flush at his casual flattery, and tried for a sarcastic retort. "So what, missing nin stick together, is that what you're trying to sell me?"

The three Akatsuki laughed aloud at the notion.

"Fuck no, Princess," chuckled Hidan darkly, "if anything it's a more vicious competition than ever. But of course…not all the missing nin we come across as are as fucking tasty as you." He sent her a wink and drew his tongue across his teeth before capturing his full lower lip between them with a hungry expression.

Her eyes unwillingly glued to Hidan's mouth, Sakura vividly remembered just how much she'd appreciated that talented tongue just an hour ago. Her traitorous body gave a visible shiver and her nipples tightened at the display, to her frustration. Seeing as she wasn't wearing her bra under her tank, she was sure the Akatsuki didn't miss this.

Huffing in embarrassment and annoyance at herself, Sakura muttered, "Whatever, pretty boy. I have a plan and a path already, and I can't risk abandoning it for a few blokes I just met. Glad you don't want to kill me anymore, but I'm not hanging around you long enough for that to matter much. So..uh…bye." With this less than eloquent final farewell, she finally crossed the room and stepped on the windowsill.

"Wait!" Deidara's voice made her hesitate.

"I think I've waited enough," she said. "I gotta go."

"What's the rush, un?"

"Well this isn't exactly how I imagined my night going, so I'm just leaving you guys to your room," she replied.

"But why though, yeah?" Deidara asked, making her finally turn around in question at his persistence. She would have thought they'd be glad to be rid of an unknown threat like her as soon as possible.

"Just stay with us tonight like we planned, un, now that you know we're not trying to kill you!"

His eager smile faded as she looked back at him incredulously, then down at that damn fur carpet, then up and down his still-shirtless torso.

Kisame jumped in, "Not like that, Kitten," he chuckled. "Hands off, just offering you a place to rest up before you go on your journey." His face was all innocence, as much as a seven-foot tall blue shark-man could pull that off.

Sakura was torn. On the one hand, these were the men who had in the course of one night seduced her and tried to kill her, and she was honestly uncertain which was more dangerous to her now. On the other…it had been weeks since she'd slept indoors. And those beds looked so inviting…hell, even the carpet would be a relief at this point.

Seeing the indecision on her face, Hidan joined in as well. "Come on, Princess, live a little. With those sexy fucking superpunches of yours we wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to you anyways."

Secretly, the problem was that Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to stop them from doing some things to her…but she quickly quashed that mutinous thought. She squared her shoulders and gave them a resigned, suspicious glare.

"…Fine." Deidara cheered while Hidan and Kisame broke into grins, and she continued. "But any of you lays a hand on me and they lose it, got it? …And I take the bed," she added as an afterthought.

"Didn't seem to mind our hands earlier," muttered Hidan under his breath, but nodded along with the others.

Suddenly stifling a yawn, Sakura walked over to the bed in question and settled down in it, while Hidan and Kisame fought over the second one next to it, Kisame losing out when Hidan pointed out that the bed was too small for his frame anyways. With a grumble, Kisame headed over to the fur carpet in front of the fireplace and stretched out on his stomach, not bothering with a blanket.

Sakura was briefly mesmerized by the dimmed light from the fireplace playing over his muscles, turning his blue skin orange in places. The flames highlighted his incredibly broad shoulders, bunched biceps as he used his forearm as a pillow, back smoothly tapering into lean hips and surprisingly adorable back dimples. Sakura's eyes roved over his muscular ass, covered in this shinobi pants, and she suddenly got an image of how powerful those would look as he was thrusting, flexing with powerful thighs that could hold her down with ease…

Realizing she'd been staring and practically salivating, Sakura quickly laid down under the covers, making the mistake of glancing at Hidan who had been watching her watch Kisame with a smirk on his face. She looked away quickly, taking care not to notice how he'd positioned himself in his bed, facing her, in the most provocative manner- the sheets bunched up right at his waist, giving the illusion he was naked underneath. With his hair tousled from her hands and the fight earlier, and the light from the fireplace only barely illuminating the sharp contours of his abs and shoulders, he looked half-wild, a beast watching her with all the patience of a predator in wait.

Sakura felt something clench deep inside at his look, and he quirked up the side of his mouth in a cocky half-smile at her before lying back down on his back, arms behind his head and closing his eyes.

"Goodnight Sakura-chan," he said softly, smile still in place.

Watching his breath even out while her heart raced, she seriously began to reconsider staying. At this rate, she'd be the one pouncing on them rather than the other way around. Missing-nin, she reminded herself, control yourself, don't put yourself in that vulnerable position.

With that thought, which sounded unconvincing even to her own mind, Sakura looked around to see where Deidara was…only to catch him on the floor by her bed, his cloak bunched under his head like a pillow.

"Hey!" She whispered to him, "what are you doing?"

Deidara opened one eye and looked up at her, "well you took my bed, so I'm trying to sleep, un," he murmured back softly, calmly.

He shut his eyes again as Sakura gaped, and shifted to make himself more comfortable on the floor. She noticed goosebumps on his skin- he was still shirtless as well- and the medic in her took over.

"Here," Sakura said, and threw her blanket over him, suppressing a smirk when it hit him on the face and he flailed a bit trying to get it off. "You'll catch a cold." The guilt at making him sleep on the floor abated, Sakura laid back herself, turning onto her side and closing her eyes. She felt a bit chilly herself now, without her blanket, but nothing she wasn't used to after weeks of camping outdoors and on the run.

A second later, the blanket descended back over her body, and the mattress tilted at the weight of a new body settling in behind her. Deidara's soft voice murmured against the shell of her ear from behind, "If you're so worried about it, let's just share the blanket. Wouldn't want you getting sick either, Pinky."

Sakura stopped breathing, feeling the heat of his body behind her, his own hot breath against her skin sending goosebumps down her arm. She felt his fingertip trace a path up her bicep and down.

"See?" He whispered in her ear again, "Just admit you're cold, un."

"…a-alright," Sakura's voice hitched slightly. "Just make sure you keep your hands to yourself," she said more firmly, scooting away from his heat and to the other edge of the bed. There was a quiet laugh from the man beside her. "Sure thing, Pinky. You're safe with me," he added with more sincerity in his voice. Strangely enough, Sakura believed him.

 


	7. Steam

**A/N: pure smut warning, graphic sexual situation ahead. If you don't want to read about it...you're probably reading the wrong fic.**

 

 

 

Surprisingly, Sakura was able to fall asleep, her exhaustion and the warmth quickly sucking her into a deep slumber.

She woke up for an unknown reason several hours later, feeling content and warm and still half asleep. Perhaps it was that feeling of safety that was so unusual that it had woken her up, but once she sleepily determined she wasn't in any danger, Sakura settled back into bed, burrowing her face into her pillows, pressing a little at the warmth against her back…only to stop breathing as the warmth gained weight and shifter against her. A strong arm snaked around her waist and drew her back against the hard torso behind her. Her sleepy haze cleared a little as she became distinctly aware of hot breath against the back of her neck, but she relaxed when she recognized that it was soft and even, asleep. She was awake now, though, and her body became hyper-attuned to every sensation around her. The heavy weight of the arm across her waist, fingers splayed over her stomach under her shirt, which had ridden up her ribs in her sleep.

The skin-on-skin contact made her breath quicken and she tried not to move, doing her best not to think about the soft lips on his palm that she could feel against her skin. The body behind her shifter closer, seeking warmth, and she could feel the hard planes of his torso against her back, his groin cradling her ass, his feet against hers…Sakura's face flamed as she felt a hard length resting lightly against her buttock, barely touching her but making her hyper-aware of it all the same.

With a shaky breath, Sakura tried not to move, and settle back into sleep. But she was too stimulated now, her heart racing and a tingling awareness settling in wherever her skin was in contact with Deidara. He smelled earthy, like the clay he worked with and dynamite, a distinctly masculine scent that made her want to bury her face in his chest and inhale deeply. She bit her lip carefully, exhaled, and tried to inch her hips away from his, to escape her own traitorous libido. As she subtly angled her body away from him, he made a dissatisfied sound in the back of his throat and his arm tightened around her torso.

He shifted, and then pushed his thigh in between hers, snuggling up to her even closer, his hand splaying higher across her ribcage, tips of his fingers brushing against the bottom curve of her breast. His hips now firmly pressed against her ass, she felt his very hard length against her buttock, his warm thigh spreading her legs open and threatening to press up against her most intimate spot.

Sakura couldn't help herself: she arched back a little against his thigh, shifted to try to relieve the unbearable tension that filled her. At her movement, Deidara's hand lazily drifted up and quite casually cupped her bare breast underneath her tank, and he let out a content sigh in his sleep. The warm, callused hand on her breast made Sakura's breast hitch, and she stopped breathing entirely when the lips on his palm rubbed themselves right across the nipple before latching on softly, reflexively. His thumb grazed up and down the curve of her cleavage, while his artistic fingers unconsciously began to knead her breast like clay. A bolt of arousal shot straight to her groin, and Sakura only partially suppressed a breathless moan as she pressed her legs tighter together against the thigh between them.

That's when the body behind her tensed slightly and his breath sped up, and Sakura knew that Deidara had woken up.

Deidara was drifting into consciousness, his last memory one of winning the spot in the little kunoichi's bed, though it had seemed she was determined to ignore her own desires and run off. Her inexperience was clear after her stunned reaction to her first orgasm, and he'd felt a sort of dark anticipation at the thought of teaching her more. Even if Deidara had thought she was a civilian at the time. He felt bad for reacting so violently to the revelation that Sakura was a shinobi, but for the most part Deidara had just been annoyed that she'd not waited until some serious action had happened before revealing herself. He'd never take someone by force- a rather huge taboo in shinobi culture, even for missing nin- but damn, he didn't remember the last time he was so viscerally attracted to someone.

Her defiance, explosive temper, and unconscious sensuality all appealed to the artist in him, and the pretty package it was all wrapped in just sweetened the deal in his eyes. It was a shame that since becoming Akatsuki, no kunoichi worth her headband had lowered her guard enough to let the blond ninja close. Oh, there'd been a couple missing-nin who'd propositioned him, but in such a crass and vulgar way, their manner roughened by life on the run, that his artistic sensibilities had firmly rejected them. Now this girl, freshly free, just discovering herself without the conformity of her village, hints of her true personality already beginning to show through-well. He wouldn't mind taking a bite outta that, yeah.

The dream Deidara had been having- about this very same kunoichi, warm and wet and willing- had bled into reality slowly, the weight against him just a bit too real, the softness in his hand too tantalizing. He woke up fully when he heard her quiet moan and felt her press into him hard. The bomber could hardly believe being caught in such a position; he wasn't certain of his ability to move away, yet he didn't want to scare her away again...

The blond nin's hand froze against her breast and he started to retract it, whispering something vaguely apologetic. Sakura, desperately, grabbed his wrist with her smaller hand and held it in place, arching back against his thigh in search of release.

Deidara noticeably started, then with a barely audible curse, pressed himself into her ass and grasped her breast more firmly. The sensation was incredible, especially once he began to press soft, wet kisses at the back of her neck. His fingers rolled her nipple and pinched it, and Sakura gasped in a breath as she ground back against the thigh between her legs. In the same motion, she felt his length press hard against her ass cheek, and heard his own breath hitch.

His hand went down her ribs to her hip, smoothly sliding under the waistband of her tights, a tongue stimulating that spot she liked on her hipbone, and he removed his thigh from between her legs. Before Sakura could feel bereft, Deidara lined up his hips with hers and pressed his length, straining against his pants, against the cleft of her ass. Sakura could only respond by pressing back against him, and he showed his approval by giving her hipbone a small nip followed by a languorous swipe of the tongue in his hand.

Deidara suddenly shifted his hand and pushed it further down her panties to her mound, pressing against it with the heel of his palm to keep her in place as he ground against her once more. His fingers spread through the soft hair above her entrance, and then boldly pressed against her clit. Sakura choked down a moan as he started to gently, steadily move his talented, strong, sculptor's fingers over the hood of her clit. Every stroke of the unhurried, skilled motion chipped away at her sanity and self-control, driving her mindless with need. She squeezed her thighs together and pressed back against him hard, arching her back to feel him against her opening.

Sakura heard a quiet, "fuck!" whispered with such need it made her quiver.

The hand in her panties removed itself quickly and went to the waistband of his pants. A second later, it grabbed the fabric of the tights over her hip and pushed them down and off in one smooth motion, baring her for him in a flash. Before she could feel self-conscious , she felt the swollen head of his cock sliding between her closed thighs, dragging along her clit and sliding firmly alongside the lips of her pussy.

Sakura froze at the sensation, suddenly intimate and almost too much, feeling the bare skin of his most intimate part pressing against the soft lips of her entrance. He wasn't inside her and didn't seem to be trying to be, but she still felt strangely vulnerable. He hissed out a sharp breath at the tight fit he made in between her thighs, and she clenched them together involuntarily to bring his length closer against her clit.

Deidara moved back, slowly, and then eased once more into the cradle between her thighs. His hand grabbed her hip tightly, and for the next stroke moved her back against him, allowing her to feel the hard 'V' of his abs against her bare backside. Their breaths became heavier as the rhythmic, slow motion of his cock sliding in between her legs and back out only fueled Sakura's desire. She felt herself getting more aroused by the minute, and soon Deidara was gliding wetly along skin slick with her juices, head and then shaft brushing against her clit and back, forward and back, slowly, with all the patience and control a shinobi had, driving Sakura wild with each stroke.

She was panting and feeling stunningly empty inside even as her arousal built and her clit throbbed. Trying to press him closer against it, she angled her hips further back and tried to buck against him. Deidara exhaled a shaky breath and returned his palm to her clit, letting his tongue press down over the hood of it even as his fingers caught the head of his cock on the next pass through and pressed it tightly against her nub. Sakura jerked, and he repeated the sliding motion, again catching his length tighter against her than ever before. Her hips flexed, and for a moment the head slipped and pressed against her opening instead. The sensation there was different- it felt exactly like what she was craving.

Sakura had never before felt such an overwhelming need to be filled, to be split apart and welcome something hard and hot inside of her, deep, all the way to her core. The sharp desire shocked her but not enough to stop, as he kept gliding against her, cock pressed between her ass cheeks to her opening to sliding tight against her clit to back against her entrance. It pressed sharply enough that she felt the pressure but not enough to penetrate her… Sakura tried to buck down, bring it in, welcomed it, but the hand against her mound tightened and held her in place. Deidara's mouth moved to her ear.

"You sure, yeah? Last chance, Pinkie."

And she could feel how tight his voice was, sensed his fraying control in the miniscule trembling of the breath against her ear, the convulsive motion of his hand flexing over her pussy.

"Yess," she breathed, "Please…"

She felt him smile in relief against her neck, and he slid forward once again, to hold the head of his cock against the clit, grinding her down on it. Then, finally, he was there, against her entrance, while Sakura arched back to give him easier access. Deidara pressed in slowly, steadily splitting her apart in tiny increments, as the tight muscles of her entrance resisted the intrusion despite the soaking evidence of her desire.

Then, his length finally slid in fully, stretching the last few inches until he was sheathed inside of her to the hilt. Sakura felt full to the point of discomfort, and her tight inner muscles convulsed around him in an effort to dislodge the foreign body—or pull it in.

Deidara exhaled out a shaky gust of air that was almost a sob as he leaned his forehead against her neck. He paused for a second, at the edge of his control, letting Sakura get more accustomed to feeling him inside her, and a moment later she felt the discomfort turn into a delicious glide of pleasure as he slid out halfway and then back in again, slowly, letting her feel every inch of his girth spreading her apart and entering her fully. She let him torture her with the slow glide for a little while before getting impatient. On the next slide inside her, she slammed her hips back sharply, impaling herself upon him with a smooth motion. With that, she felt his control break.

With a barely-suppressed growl, he rolled on top of her, pushing her on her stomach, and kicked her legs apart with his knees, then sank into her once more. The new angle offered him more depth and leverage, and Sakura moaned low in her throat as she felt him hit her cervix, a sharp burst of pleasure running through her body. Deidara braced an elbow by Sakura's shoulder and grabbed her hip firmly with his other hand, using the leverage to tilt it up and back as he started to thrust into her with more power.

Sakura felt helpless beneath him, overwhelmed by the feeling of his tightly muscled body moving and thrusting sharp bursts of ever-growing pleasure inside of her, her ass held on display for him, his long-fingered hand controlling her every move. All she could do was ride out the growing pleasure, mindless with need and desire and the craving inside her. It felt like her world had both expanded and narrowed down to the man holding her down and filling her more than she'd ever felt in her life.

Deidara suddenly withdrew, and flipped her onto her back, wide green eyes meeting a hooded gaze of startling, piercing blue through a curtain of blond hair.

"I want to see your face when you come, Pinkie," he said, looking over her body hungrily. Sakura got a glimpse of his lean torso, glistening with sweat over hard-packed abs before he settled between her legs, his face inches from hers. He started to slide against her again, teasing her with his length gliding over the lips of her opening and across her clit, then back again, the combined wetness from his pre-cum and her arousal making the motion slick and almost obscene.

He looked into her eyes and held her gaze as he brought the head of his cock to press against her opening and then powerfully pushed into her, all the way home. He watched her eyelashes flutter at the sensation, and brought his mouth to hers as he started to move in deep strokes. His kisses were playful, explosive, and Sakura quickly adjusted to his rhythm and answered it, bracing her feet against the bed and meeting his every thrust.

He moved his free hand across her torso down to where they were joined, and let the tongue go to work on her clit as he changed the angle of his entry. The new position hit something inside Sakura that made her toes curl and her breath hitch with every thrust, and she moaned out loud into Deidara's mouth as he increased the tempo. She felt herself building up to a crescendo, the stimulation combined with the feel of his hard body against hers almost too much. She brought up her hands from where they'd been bracing against his chest and into his soft hair, grabbing handfuls and pulling as she strained for something she needed desperately. Deidara kept his motions the same but increased the tempo just a bit, and that was enough to throw her over the edge.

Sakura came with a broken cry, swallowed by his mouth and tongue as his talented fingers and hard cock relentlessly continued their assault around her trembling contractions. He let go completely then, thrusting with almost more power than she could bear. Even as she came down from the wave of her orgasm, the feeling of him losing his iron control against her was enough to send a renewed spike of desire through her. Deidara's smooth, hard rhythm went jerky and she knew he was about to come. He made to withdraw, but Sakura clasped his hips with her legs and held him in place.

"No, inside. I want to feel you come," she gasped, needing to feel him fully. She was more grateful than ever that as a medic, she could halt her body's cycle until the danger of pregnancy passed. Right now, she felt the deepest urge to feel everything, take all that he was and had to give. "Come for me, baby, give it all to me," she breathed out needily, hardly even knowing what she was saying. At her words, Deidara groaned, and finally came in hard, jerking spurts inside of her as she cradled his shoulders and he pressed his mouth against her neck.

They stayed there for a minute, him still inside her, his cock twitching in aftershocks as it softened, while she marveled at how even that aroused her. Sakura hadn't come so hard, and during sex at that, in…ever. Even the orgasm of earlier that night nearly paled in comparison. It almost felt like each encounter with these nin only raised her appetite for more. Sakura felt energized, and strangely comfortable in her own skin while in such a vulnerable position, as she idly trailed her fingers across the smooth skin of his shoulders.

Her satisfied musings were interrupted by a small rustle, a motion in the corner of her eye, and Sakura tensed. She'd forgotten entirely that they weren't alone in the room, and while she'd kept quiet at first, there was no way the other occupants of the room hadn't heard them in the end. She slowly turned her head and her green eyes met the dark purple stare of Hidan, who was watching them with unabashed interest and amusement. The motion that had caught her eye—Sakura looked away, her cheeks flaming even despite everything she'd just done with Deidara. Hidan's hand had been working smoothly against his straining cock, freed from the confines of his pants and emerging from a white-haired happy trail. Sakura had to peek back- and again caught the amused, purple eyes of the sadist. "That was quite a fucking show, Princess. Up for another?"

 


	8. Precipitation

 

Hidan's provocative words and lascivious appraisal knocked a bit of Sakura's usual self-consciousness to the fore, breaking through the fog of desire. She was suddenly very aware that she was naked and sweaty and with an undeniable just-had-sex bedhead- hell, he'd probably been awake and watching her give in to her nymphomaniac side from the second she had stirred. Yet, despite being more aware of her surroundings and the unprecedented situation... Sakura didn't want to fall back into her repressed, socially acceptable persona.

Since Danzo's takeover and the collapse of her carefully structured world, she'd been increasingly in tune with Inner Sakura, who she'd come to realize was the personification of her suppressed desires. Inherently a passionate being, she had suppressed those qualities into her deep subconscious—first to appease her strict, traditional mother, then to conform to her ideal vision of a shinobi as a controlled, poised weapon. She'd been perceptive enough in the Academy to understand that her spontaneous and aggressive desires were not in line with being a textbook-perfect shinobi. The Shinobi Handbook stated that a ninja killed not for their own cause but for their contracts, and Sakura had always been a perfect student.

As the world she had known had been destroyed under Danzo's brutal regime change, Sakura'd had little reason to push back Inner anymore. Rather, it had been Inner's paranoid whisperings that had spurred her to create the escape plan long before she was certain of Danzo's plan to assassinate her. But while she let Inner out far more often in the last year, Sakura hadn't had much reason to fully embrace her until she'd escaped, keeping up the façade of compliance 'til the last minute.

Something was happening now, though, that she'd never felt before: Inner's presence became an almost physical thing inside her, closer to the surface than ever before. Desire, anger, sensuality, amusement, lingering despair, a desperation to live while she could- they suddenly came to her more clearly than she'd let herself feel in a long time. The emotions made her gasp as the sheets across her skin suddenly became almost unbearable to touch, and she felt with unprecedented clarity every delicious muscle strain, every gliding drop of sweat along her body, the renewed aching emptiness between her legs.

What…what is this? Her breath hitched.

This is what happens when you don't suppress nearly half of your own self continuously, Sugarcheeks, came the voice of Inner, sounding closer than ever before.

Then…this is how normal people feel? Sakura thought incredulously, How in the world do they cope?

Well—not quite, admitted Inner. You'd gotten mere impressions of those emotions, and learned to compensate for them. Right now you're just oversensitive to the full brunt of them, but you'll get used to this.

How did this…release… happen in the first place? Demanded Sakura.

My guess…probably something to do with fully letting go, for once in your life, to something you truly desired. Not completely sure yet. We're hardly a normal case.

So all it took to bring me together was mind-blowing sex? Thought Sakura wryly.

She heard a cackle in response, and, impossibly, there was the faint impression of a breath along her ear, Take a lot more than that to get us into one whole person again, if that's even possible, girlie. But it did push us closer together…and give me a bit more power.

Sakura felt a jolt of alarm at the smirk she heard in the last words.

No, not what you're thinking, jeez. You and me—we're the same side of one coin, or more accurately—I AM you. Couldn't go against your true wishes even if I wanted to. No, think of it more as…less repression, more liberation of what you truly want. Sakura got an impression of a wink with that.

She thought fast. Inner hadn't really steered her wrong before, even if she was more impulsive, aggressive, and passionate than generally acceptable. While Sakura wasn't thrilled with this development, she was also fairly tired of always suppressing her true desires. And these feelings…kami, they were intoxicating. She felt so alive!

Okay…so why am I feeling so much right now?

Exactly what I meant, my lovely. You're not going to get to foist those pesky desires and emotions on yours truly anymore- it appears I'm about to have bigger fish to fry. No, you gotta deal with this yourself. Even if you can ignore these feelings, now that you know you have them—do you really want to go back to ignoring them? Even if it's just for tonight, this is my advice to you- live a little!

With that, a door slammed shut in her mind, though the intense feelings, sensuality, and physical sensitivity remained. Sakura couldn't bring herself to wonder at Inner's cryptic comment, as she now had to deal with the full force of her true desires without Inner to buffer them out. Andre she still felt Hidan's hungry gaze on her like a physical caress; he had stopped his blatant provocation in favor of watching her with a lazy stare while she hesitated.

Her entire inner monologue had taken no more than twenty seconds, as thoughts tend to, but it seemed the shinobi could sense something had changed. His violet eyes had the patience of the immortal he was rumored to be combined with the barely-leashed storm of his volatile mind, currently focused entirely on her.

And heavens help her, Sakura wanted this. She wanted to taste the danger of an S-Rank missing-nin on her tongue, feel that hard body trained as a living weapon shuddering beneath her, test the limits of the violence she could feel pressuring his psyche. Her own emotions were straining towards him, answering his with their own volatility, their need to be acknowledged, validated. Sakura felt reckless and daring and just a little bit mad- but who wasn't, in the ninja world? Right now, the answering lack of restraint in Hidan's gaze spurred her on, and she decided to throw caution to the wind. Who cared if they killed her once they got under her guard? They'd had numerous chances already. She'd already given in to Deidara, and he had been better than her wildest fantasies: what would this second man, with his wild eyes and charismatic smirk, be able to show her? What did it matter to her what social norms she was breaking, even by ninja standards, if she didn't even belong to a society that would disapprove anymore? So, this was it.

Tonight, she would allow herself this.

Decision made, Sakura's attention resettled on Hidan with the confident focus of a woman who knew what she wanted. She felt languid and yet energized, distantly noting that Deidara had moved aside and was now lying beside her, spent. As she accepted her need and decided to sate it, something inside her stirred, shifted slowly, inexorably, like tectonic plates. It settled, and with a new burst of heat, Sakura knew that what she wanted most in the world right now was the shinobi across from her.

Utterly unselfconscious for perhaps the first time in her life, she stretched deeply, feeling the delicious burn in every muscle. Hidan's hungry eyes followed the movement, tracing along the smooth planes of her stomach, her slender legs, pert breasts with small beads of sweat lingering between them. His stare felt like a physical caress, and Sakura took her time rolling over onto her stomach to look at him. Deidara found the energy next to her to run his hand along her back, sending shivers up her spine as she looked over to meet Hidan's burning gaze. Holding his lavender eyes, Sakura slowly rose, and padded over to his bed.

*HPOV*

Hidan watched the pink-haired spitfire approach. Fucking hell, since the first time he saw her he knew she was going to be divine. And the sight approaching him didn't disappoint. Lithe muscles covered in milky pale skin that was just begging to be marked up by him, that gorgeous ass he felt obsessed with already, jade eyes he could feel reaching into his soul and entering into a dialogue with the madness within…He didn't normally resort to pansy-ass poetry but this night was defying all expectations already. And he fucking loved it.

The kunoichi came up to his bed and in a smooth, swift motion, she braced her hands on his shoulders and swung her leg over his lap. Straddling him gently, she leaned down and licked a stripe along his neck.

Hidan could feel her adjust her approach with him compared to his observations of her with the bomber: she was more reckless, and he felt an answering madness to his own deep within her. The girl might hide it, but he'd seen her expressions change minutely as if having a conversation with herself, the mood swings and the way she adapted so quickly to everything they threw at her. None of that mattered now, as her bold recklessness drove him fucking wild.

Hidan surged up to meet her mouth with his as his hands settled firmly on her hips. He kissed her ravenously, roughly, feeling starved for the taste of her, having gotten a tease of it earlier. As his tongue coaxed hers out to battle for dominance, Sakura ground down against his tightly bunched abs, just shy of his erection. His hands encouraged the movement, guiding her hips against him once more, then pushing her unashamedly lower, to press her mound against his length. They both groaned at the sensation. This, this was Jashin-sama's reward for his service! And It. Was. Fucking. Glorious.

Sakura broke the kiss and leaned her forehead against him at the feeling, framing them both in a curtain of pink hair. Then, to his surprise and without seeming to think twice about it, she sunk down on his length in one hard motion. Fuck, he was lost. This girl would be the death of him.

*End HPOV*

Sakura felt bold, giddy—where Deidara was playful, Hidan inspired a certain recklessness, the feeling that unless she went head to head with him, he would take over and take things just a bit too far. She could sense a fine line between sanity and madness where he was concerned. As much as this frightened her, it also made her want to push those limits, find out where those lines were drawn.

Her eyes fluttered closed at the sensation of him sheathed fully inside her; her inner muscles tightened against the invasion and he growled, ragged and deep, in his throat. He filled her up almost to the point of pain, and Sakura felt tempted to just stay sitting there and savor the sensation.

Hidan's hands at her hips flexed hard, and Sakura knew they would leave bruises—knew and didn't care, for without missing a beat, he took control of her own body and brought her hips up and down against him. And again, harder.

Without giving her time to recover, he settled her body into a hard rhythm against his, and all she could do was follow his lead and hold on. Hidan reached his head up to one of her nipples, and bit once, gently and testing her reaction. When she arched into it, he did it again, hard enough to make Sakura cry out and falter in her movements as the pain sent a lightning bolt of heat to her core. Hidan smirked wickedly against her breast, lathed the stinging area with his tongue and brought his mouth back to hers, nipping at her lips playfully. His strong, wide hand flexed harder against her hip and moved to the small of her back, while he brought his muscled arm around her shoulders and brought their chests together, caging her in his embrace and rendering Sakura immobile.

Thus taking control, he began to piston his own hips upwards to hers, pushing himself into her with more power and control than she'd been able to manage in her inexperience. Sakura's eyes fluttered shut and she emitted a low moan at the sensation. The Jashinist groaned himself, muttering out, "So fucking tight, goddamn," under his breath, a litany of curses and praise following as he invaded her body.

She burrowed her head in his shoulder, then nipped hard at the juncture of his neck as he hit a particularly good angle.

With a harsh groan, Hidan's control faltered at the pain and he grabbed her hair with his hand, forcing her head back to meet his. The tight grip and his fierce eyes burning into hers made Sakura gasp, biting her lip even as he upped the tempo. Quick as a snake, Hidan darted in to nip and suck at her exposed neck, no doubt leaving marks, even as his hand on the small of her back stroked small circles down the sensitive skin at the top of the cleft of her ass.

The sensation of fingers stroking that delicate skin made her squirm in his hold as he moved lower, to a more intimate and yet unexplored part of her. He pressed three fingers firmly against that tight pucker, his hand so close to where they were more intimately joined, his girth thrusting wetly in and out of her. The pressure increased the already substantial fullness she was feeling as it pressed the walls of her vagina tighter around his member. Mindless with need and feeling utterly exposed, Sakura could only moan as he growled at her acquiescence and slowed his thrusts to hard, almost violent invasions.

Without pausing, suddenly Hidan called out, "You just going to watch, Fins, or do you wanna fucking join?"

Sakura's head whipped around so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. Kisame's eyes met hers as he propped a hip against the foot of the bed she'd vacated, next to Deidara who had apparently been watching with just as much interest. There was a new look in the blue giant's eyes: the good-natured humor she'd sensed from him earlier was giving way to a darker, wilder focus that was reminiscent of a shark in bloodlust.

Sakura hadn't even sensed him approach, so caught up in Hidan. Well, if any of them had been planning on killing me, I guess this proves otherwise. I certainly wasn't paying attention, she silently berated herself. Inner didn't respond: probably too busy watching the show.

At Hidan's words, Kisame had stilled, his eyes losing expression and a tense expression entering his face. Sakura pushed lightly at Hidan, and he let her hair go, after a brief pause. She sat up on his lap, and beckoned with one hand to Kisame.

"Come on, Big Blue," she welcomed, "Or did you change your mind?"

Kisame's face transformed into a huge grin that couldn't quite suppress his relief. Sakura could see how he might be used to rejection: civilian women would certainly be frightened by his tremendous bulk, blue skin and bloodlust, while kunoichi would normally never let such an infamous missing nin near them. Wonder whether that makes me stupid or brave, she thought idly as Kisame got up to join them.

 


	9. Mist

 

Kisame came up to the edge of the bed, his muscled abdomen at a level with Sakura's face. She ran her hand lightly over his blue skin, tracing the hard abs and the veins along his hips, then hooked her finger in the waistband of his pants and pulled it to draw him towards her. He obliged by moving closer, his big hand reaching out to cup her cheek and slide into her hair to cradle the back of her head. She could feel how careful he was being with his enormous strength, the constant control he needed to maintain everywhere except in battle.

So naturally, Sakura decided to dismantle that restraint. She'd had enough people treat her like china for a lifetime, and this was one night of freedom she had allowed herself. So she leaned forward, and licked a trail up from the top of his pants to his belly button. Kisame jerked, a strangled growl escaping and eyes dilating sharply as she held his gaze in a challenging, teasing smirk. His hand tightened involuntarily in her hair, and the already intimidating bulge strained against his pants so hard she could feel his heartbeat pulse through.

Hidan settled his hands around the part of Sakura's thighs where they met her ass and held her suspended in place so he could slowly, firmly piston his own hips up towards hers. He had enough strength that she didn't have to worry about moving, allowing her to also pay attention to the man beside her.

Kisame's hooded eyes were dilated and focused unerringly on Sakura as she bit her lip and deftly undid the button of his pants. Instead of opening them all the way, she trailed her fingers across the outline of his member, which was already putting the zipper to the test. The sheer size of what strained against his pants made her pause, half in intimidation and half in anticipation. In response, Kisame gave a toothy grin, and moved his own hand to cup himself through his pants, before moving the zipper down with agonizing, teasing slowness.

He finally freed his straining member from the confines of the material, and stroked lightly, right in front of Sakura's face. She swallowed, her eyes drawn to the impressive girth in front of her. Not only was it long, but it was about as thick as her forearm, and she had serious doubts that it would fit in her mouth, much less anywhere else. A particularly well-angled thrust from Hidan beneath her made her go cross-eyed, though, and she suddenly had no room for logistical concerns or apprehension in her mind anymore: just desire.

He hissed when her small hand touched him at last, and Sakura bit her lip curiously as she tried to encircle the length with her fingers, her thumb a good inch away from her middle finger. She weighed it in her palm, stroked it lightly, and it pulsed in her hand, making her suppress a giggle. Sakura chanced another glance up at Kisame, and his expression made the laughter evaporate: the look on his face was of such intense need that she decided to stop teasing.

Refocusing on the object in front of her, Sakura leaned forward and licked off a bead of pre-cum from the tip with her tongue, tasting it experimentally. It wasn't bad: salty, musky, yet also somehow fresh. She put the whole tip in her mouth, swirling her tongue around it like a lollipop, and heard a choked sound from Kisame above her. Taking it as approval, Sakura put her hands on the member and stroked lightly, while beginning to bob her head up and down. She'd not done this much before, much less with such a…large specimen, so this was an exploration. She alternated licking, sucking, finding the silky texture in her mouth unexpectedly arousing. Both of Kisame's hands settled in her hair helplessly, and she glanced up to see a desperate expression on his face.

As she got into a good rhythm, Hidan took that as a cue to pick up his pace, adjusting his angle until it was hard for her to concentrate.

Suddenly he stopped, picked her up by the hips, and turned her around effortlessly so her back was facing him. She glimpsed Deidara sitting up in the first bed, very obviously enjoying the show. He winked at her and stroked himself as the two nin maneuvered her so that Kisame was directly in front of her, making it easier to put her mouth on him.

Sakura arched her back and eagerly moved along when the Jashinist directed her hips to sink down onto him once more, needing to feel him inside her again. He grabbed the globes of her ass with his hands and groaned at the way it flexed and moved when she continued rocking on top of him. The angle was hitting a whole new hotspot inside her, and she moaned, the pleasure starting to spiral upwards once more. Kisame's hands went back to cradling her head and he brought his member to her lips, sliding past her opened mouth and against her tongue before retreating. She tried to follow it, but he held her head in place as he started lightly moving against her mouth.

The dual invasion was unlike anything she'd ever felt before, Hidan beneath her and Kisame thrusting slowly, shallowly into her mouth. They soon fell into a synchronized rhythm- as she moved off Hidan's cock, Kisame's went all the more deeply in her mouth, and as soon as she slid off, Hidan's hands urged her to sink down on him again. Sakura felt enveloped, nearly overwhelmed with pleasure, and could only hold on to Kisame's strong hips as the two men moved her between them. She felt her body begin to tingle all over, and moaned against Kisame, who groaned at the humming sensation and drove even deeper into her mouth, hitting the back of her throat. She struggled to keep her throat relaxed and keep breathing as Hidan's hands changed the angle ever so slightly, to push deeper.

Hidan began to talk, his low, smooth voice pushing her arousal to new heights.

"Fuck, princess, that's right, give it all up. You know you fucking want to, loving the way we work you, feeling two cocks invading you, filling you to the brim." Here, he tilted her hips forward, his cock dragging against her inner walls wetly as he moved under her. "You feel so goddamn perfect, taking it all like a good girl," he praised, "You know no-one else can stroke you like this, allow you to lose control, make you feel so fucking good and tight and hot," He punctuated the word with a sharp slap to her buttock. Sakura whimpered against Kisame's girth in her mouth, the sound coming out muffled.  
"Did your pansy-ass village boys leave you cold and dry? As if their tame moves and tiny dicks could satisfy you like you need. You need men, not boys, pleasing you—" Here his fingers slid wetly along the cleft of her ass—"taking you—" He pressed against her puckered hole—"fucking you like you need to be fucked," he goaded, and pushed his thumb, slick with her juices, into her unexplored entrance. The unexpected intrusion, combined with his dark, dirty words slithering into her mind and dismantling her inhibitions, pushed Sakura over the edge.

She came hard, clenching like a vise around Hidan, sending him into his own orgasm with a curse as he shuddered under her, the pulsations of his cock deep inside her making her ride out a second wave right on top of the first. Sakura distantly heard Deidara curse and come with his own groan in the next bed, while Kisame left her mouth and brought his face down to hers instead, swallowing her cries with his lips and tongue as she shattered in their arms. Her vision went white for a second, and then she came back to herself, trembling against Hidan and answering Kisame's thorough kiss with a sigh.

Sakura climbed off Hidan and further into Kisame's lap, as he sank down onto the bed. She winced a little at the soreness that made itself known as she moved. After such a long period of near-celibacy, her body just wasn't used to this kind of abuse, and Deidara and Hidan weren't exactly small. She focused briefly, and generated a small amount of medical chakra, running her hand between her legs to ease the soreness. This had an unexpected tingling effect, and incredulously, she felt her libido sluggishly returning once more.

What is this, let the beast out of its cage once and it's never satisfied, huh? She thought wryly. Sakura glanced up at Kisame, whose expression was still tight with need.

The blue giant was obviously restraining himself, even with an armful of pink-haired medic that had made herself comfortable on his lap. Glancing down, she saw that his erection was still raging hard, straining towards her like a shark towards the scent of prey. The analogy made her suppress a snicker, and, feeling far too comfortable in the arms of a shinobi monster, Sakura entwined her hands around Kisame's neck and adjusted herself so that her most intimate part pressed against his length.

Kisame froze, his hands slowly sliding up her legs to her hips as she straddled him, and he rallied for control. It wouldn't do to hurt the petite kunoichi, and he knew from experience that women might want a bit of beast chasing them, but rarely as far as the bed. The last girl he'd 'been' with had started crying just as he entered her, despite her confidence approaching him earlier. It had taken all of his willpower to stop and let her run off, though he'd taken that edge off later by cutting his way through a squadron of hunter-nin on his trail. The blue ninja may be a monster and a remorseless killer, but he wasn't a rapist, or unlike Hidan, much of a sexual sadist.

He was therefore understandably wary when Sakura so flippantly pressed against him, testing all of his self-control. Her delicate fingers settled on his neck, an act he would normally never tolerate, especially from a confirmed A-rank ninja. Though having seen her brief demonstration out by the hot springs, Kisame suspected she was close to an S-rank designation, if she wasn't there already.

At the moment, though, Kisame was getting close to losing control, what with her lithe body pressed so firmly against his, the mischievous look in her eye, and the trails of fire her fingers left on his skin. He needed to clear his head, before he ended up hurting the little minx.

Sakura was forced to hold on as Kisame suddenly stood, his large hands bracing under her thighs to hold her against him, and strode over to the bathroom.

Inside, he went straight to the large shower where she'd cleaned off what seemed like ages ago, and turned the water on, putting them both under the spray. Sakura slid down his body and took the opportunity to trail her arms down his water-slicked skin. His muscles bunched up beneath her fingers, and she put her hand on his still-throbbing member and weighed it experimentally. With that, his control snapped.

Kisame lunged forward and pressed her up against the tiled wall in a bruising kiss, barely avoiding nicking her with his sharp teeth. His tongue invaded her mouth immediately, thoroughly exploring it until she could only helplessly hold on to his powerful shoulders as her knees threatened to buckle. The intensity of his assault combined with the overwhelmingly strong chakra buffering against her own felt like a hurricane assaulting her senses, until she was drowning in his arms.

He reached behind her thigh and lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist, and kept a slight distance between their bodies. The blue giant brought one hand between them, and thrust two fingers without hesitation into her drenched pussy, then shortly after added a third. Sakura clenched around him, close to orgasm from the unexpected intrusion, her sensitivity high even after healing herself.

"Damn," he muttered, "Still too tight, Kitten." His voice sounded strained, frustrated—he withdrew, and made a brief handsign.

Suddenly a trail of water coalesced into a thick tendril, then defied gravity and slithered up her inner thigh to press against her entrance. Sakura gasped, and looked up to see his hooded gaze burning into hers as he gauged her reaction to the intrusion. In truth, compared to even his fingers, the water tendril was slight and hardly strained her inner muscles as it entered her slowly. At his direction, it undulated, pressing directly against Sakura's g-spot, before starting to rotate slowly, wetly within her. Sakura shuddered and arched hard against the intrusion.

Still holding her gaze, Kisame added a handsign and suddenly the water tendril swelled inside her, stretching her to the point where it was slightly uncomfortable. Sakura squirmed, and Kisame directed it to flex against her inner spot again. Her gasp of pleasure drew a pleased smirk from the former mist nin, and she could only hold onto his biceps as he supported her thighs with his hands, her legs feeling about as strong as a newborn foal's. His predatory gaze was entirely focused on where his water animation was beginning to undulated shallowly in and out of her entrance, growing incrementally larger every time it felt any give. Sakura was panting, the warm, wet intrusion unlike anything she'd ever felt before, squirming inside her and stretching her out to her limits.

Finally, Kisame deemed the jutsu had done it's job preparing her, or perhaps couldn't wait any longer, watching Sakura tremble in his arms. He dispelled the water jutsu, which left her body in a warm flush of wetness, and pressed the engorged head of his cock against her entrance.

Rather than press into her himself, Kisame let gravity do the work, slowly easing down his support and letting Sakura slide down on his cock inch by inch. Even with the preparation, Sakura felt split nearly past her limit as Kisame worked his way slowly inside of her, his powerful hips trembling minutely with the effort of holding still and not just pushing all the way into her at once.  
Finally, just when she thought she couldn't possibly take anymore inside of her, he was sheathed to the hilt. Her body tried to resist the splitting pressure, convulsing around Kisame's girth, making him clench his teeth while he waited for her to relax into him. Slowly, the uncomfortable fullness tipped more into pleasure, and Sakura squirmed in the giant's hold, tightening her legs around his waist in encouragement. Kisame obliged, dragging his hips out 'til only the tip was left within Sakura, and pushing back in again. This time, the overwhelming pressure brought nothing but ecstasy as he managed to brush against every single one of her hotspots in one go, and Sakura moaned loudly, scratching her blunt fingernails along Kisame's chest.

"Fuck, Kitten, you feel so incredibly good and tight," Kisame ground out, his pupils blown wide and his sharp teeth flashing. Bracing one blue hand against her hip, the other firmly clasping her buttock, he started to increase the pace until he was thrusting with animalistic abandon into her tight heat. Wildly, Sakura matched him for every move, the slight pain from his huge girth only adding to her pleasure and chipping away at her sanity. When the head of his cock pushed hard against her g-spot on the next thrust, Sakura surprised herself by falling into an orgasm, convulsing around his length and crying out his name.

Kisame didn't even pause, relentlessly continuing to move against her as she fell to pieces around him. As Sakura came down from the white haze of pleasure a bit, he suddenly withdrew. She found herself being pushed around to face the wall, hands against the tile and back arched to present her ass to the shark nin. He trailed a hand down her back to her hip, and lifted her up to her tip-toes, stepping up and pressing his length back into her.

As he worked his way in, Kisame braced a hand on the wall above Sakura, caging her by his giant bulk. With more room to maneuver, he upped the pace and strength of his thrusts. The blue giant hit her cervix with a burst of pleasure-pain every time, his heavy balls slapping audibly against her clit. Sakura was utterly helpless, held down by his masculine bulk, and sobbed out a broken moan as her world narrowed entirely to the man behind her.

The petite kunoichi shivered as she felt a rough palm cup her ass cheek and a wide thumb press into the same tight hole Hidan had been so obsessed with earlier. He paused, considering, then she heard him repeat the jutsu from earlier and felt that familiar water tendril replace his finger against her ass. The thin strand dipped into the hole, then engorged a bit, and started thrusting in time with Kisame's own movements. At that moment, the unfamiliar feeling only added to the sensitivity she was feeling.

All of it soon proved to be too intense for Sakura, and with a shaky cry, she fell apart in his arms once again. Her legs buckled, and the shark-man held her hips up as her contractions caused his own rhythm to stutter and break. He came in hard pulses inside her with a strangled groan, clenching his hands around her hips hard enough to bruise.

Finally spent, Sakura could only lean against him as he moved her out of the shower, dried them both off with a big towel and carried her out into the room.

Kisame took her straight to the giant carpet where it had all began, and lay her down on it. Sakura immediately burrowed her face into the plush white fur, threading her fingers through the fire-warmed softness. She felt warm, content, a blink away from a deep sleep. Dimly, she noticed three forms settling around her: a blue giant on her left, a white-haired sadist on her right, and a lithe blonde slithering up between her legs up to rest his head on her hip. Sakura yawned, and between one breath and the next, fell into a well-deserved sleep.

 

 


	10. Runoff

Chapter 10

Sakura wasn't sure what woke her, but one minute she was having strange dream conversations with three apparitions and her shadow, the next the memory of it slipped away as she quietly snapped into awareness. By the hints of pre-dawn light that were barely illuminating the room, she figured it had only been a few hours since she'd passed out, exhausted, within the arms of three S-class nuke-nin. Strangely, Sakura felt completely well-rested, with a light buzz of energy thrumming through her veins.

She yawned and stretched—or tried to, finding her body pinned down by various missing-nin appendages. A massive blue forearm was weighing down her ribcage just beneath her breasts, her head was pillowed on a muscled back, and Sakura could make out a messy-haired blond head resting on her thigh. Letting out an amused huff at their entanglement, Sakura carefully extricated herself from their assorted limbs, trying not to wake them. Surprisingly, they hardly stirred.

Deidara grumbled incomprehensibly and shuffled closer to Kisame's warmth, while Hidan snored out something that sounded vaguely like "Jashin-sama" and scratched his back where Sakura had been resting before settling into sleep again. Sakura paused, for a second, disbelieving of the fact that these S-class criminals could be so oblivious to their surroundings in sleep. Then she shrugged, and quickly dug around for her pack and clothes, putting the latter on quickly and efficiently.

She felt no need to linger. While last night had been…unforgettable, perfect, and probably the most satisfyingly mind-blowing sexual experience she'd ever have, it was also obviously a one-time thing. Sakura had learned the hard way that one-night stands were best ended with no attempts at mornings after. And with this lot, who knew if their promises of non-aggression would last into the morning? She still had her tentative plan to follow, and every moment she stayed in this room made it harder for her to leave and keep silly romantic notions from invading her heart. That harsh lesson had been learned with Sasuke, and Sakura knew the best choice was to slip away quietly, without a scene or an awkward morning-after.

This had been a perfect respite from life on the run, but as she'd learned, all good things come to an end.

With one last satisfied, somewhat amused glance at the pile of warm, muscled shinobi tangled together in sleep, Sakura turned to the window. A second later, she was gone, the breeze from the open window sending shivers along the skin of some of the most dangerous shinobi alive and making them cuddle closer to each other for warmth.

Three days later, Sakura slowed her run to make a detour to a small village for food and supplies. If nothing else, the encounter at the inn had shown her that she didn't necessarily need to forsake all creature comforts while on the run. And since Inner had unleashed their full, unfiltered emotions upon her, Sakura had found it difficult to ignore some of her impulses.

There was something to be said for indulging oneself occasionally, Sakura thought as she delicately bit off a piece of dango underneath her 'borrowed' hooded brown cloak. She'd been used to being the good, disciplined girl for so long, she'd almost forgotten that without a village to answer to, the rules were different. Constant restraint was no longer necessary for daily survival, and life was much more bearable with a few simple pleasures.

She slowly walked through the lazy town, enjoying her snack and the anonymity her hood provided. Yes, she mused, that encounter had certainly changed a lot of things. Not only surviving three S-rank missing nin, but actively enjoying a wild night with them had somewhat shifted her self-perception.

After all, if she could stand up to that, why was she so worried about the remote possibility of hunter-nin tracking her down? Even if they did find her…she felt better than she had in a long time. Her body was thrumming with power, her chakra reserves were fuller than ever, and Sakura wasn't just some meek little shinobi under Danzo's thumb! She was the youngest head medic in Konoha, Tsunade of the Sannin's apprentice, a brief former ANBU captain, and best friends with the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki! She'd risen from a nondescript civilian background and dug her way to being an A-rank kunoichi with her nails and teeth, and no stupid root hunter-nin stood a chance,  **Shannaro**! Sakura's smug expression flickered and faded as she suddenly noted the unusual turn of her thoughts.

Since when was she so self-confident, to the point of gloating?

 _ **Uh, that would be me**_ , came the sheepish voice of Inner.

_Inner! What have you done?_

_**Me? Absolutely nothing. You? So many things, we can barely even begin to comprehend them, darling.  
**_  
 _Explain_ , Sakura ground out.

_**Well, let's start with a bit of self-assessment. How are you feeling?** _

Sakura reflected a bit. The giddiness she'd woken up with three days ago had never faded, her chakra reserves full almost to the bursting, a satisfied, content sensation filling her soul like she'd never realized was possible.

Inner, who'd been following this assessment, shifted in a brief impression of a nod,  _ **Exactly, you feel fucking fantabulous. Now, I've been reflecting on this, and even my giving you your rightful emotions wouldn't fully explain this. The cocky feelings? Oh, that's all you, or at least what you've been suppressing into me for most of your life- probably for the best, since shinobi should never get too smug.**_

_**But the physical sensations, and especially the chakra? That wouldn't come from merely joining two personalities closer.** _

_Why haven't I noticed this before?_  Demanded Sakura. Her earlier self-congratulatory lightness had evaporated, leaving only rising panic.

 _ **Sweetie, you're still on the run. Hardly a lot of time for self-reflection then. That's why I was created, remember? To filter out and realize the non-immediate problems while you deal with the real world. That's also a reason why I'd never want to take control, if I could help it.**_  Sakura got the impression of a wrinkled nose,  ** _Too troublesome, to borrow our favorite Nara's phrase._**

 _Hold on_ , Sakura said, surprised,  _I thought you were supposed to be the passionate one?_ _  
_  
 __ **I was, until I passed those rightful emotions back to you, baby girl. That was a coping mechanism more than anything else. I just made sure you realized, somewhere in the back of your mind, that no matter how much you might suppress them, those emotions still exist.**

 _And now?_  Sakura asked curiously.

**_Now, I just try to process everything else that's been coming at you while you survive. I mean, I still really don't care about all those pesky social conventions you've got all tangled up in…but now I just really focus on figuring out what the hell has been going on since that Missing Nin Ménage the other night._ **

Sakura blushed.  _Do you really have to call it that?_ _  
_  
 ** _Well, we could also try Akatsuki Afterparty? S-Rank Sexytime? Criminal Coit—_** _Okay okay, you've made your point!_  Sakura interrupted, blushing furiously.

 _ **Hmm,**_  said Inner curiously,  _ **You'd think that after THAT you'd stop blushing so easily.**_

 _Hardly_ , Sakura sniffed,  _I'm just cringing at your absolutely terrible alliterations._ _  
_  
 ** _Why, I—is that lady staring at us?_**  Inner's tone sharpened.

Sakura glanced around, and, indeed, there was an older lady coming out of the grocery store who had stopped dead in her tracks to stare at her. Sakura's steps slowed, a gentle breeze teasing her long pink locks out from under the hood of her cloak to glint in the sunlight.

Looking closer, the old woman either had a very strange way of losing pigmentation in an originally red head of hair, or her hair was also pink. The strange hair color, which Sakura had believed to be unique to herself, made the younger girl stop dead in her tracks in the middle of the street. A group of giggling teenagers parted around her as she stood awkwardly on the dusty road, and a stronger gust of wind finally succeeded in throwing her hood away from her face. The unknown lady stilled further, dark green eyes hungrily devouring Sakura's features across the road.

Sakura returned the stare, eyes roving over familiar-looking cheekbones and a forehead only slightly narrower than her own with a hint of delicate wrinkles—before a wagon heavily loaded with pottery crossed between her and the stranger. When it passed, the lady was gone, a discarded bag full of fruit and vegetables left split open on the ground.

Suddenly shivering in the warm afternoon sun, Sakura scanned the street one more time, hoping to catch a glimpse of the woman. There was none, and she was starting to catch strange looks for standing in the middle of the street with her distinctive hair billowing freely in the wind. Ignoring it for the moment, Sakura walked up to the discarded bag of groceries, but aside from learning that the strange woman apparently liked a lot of leafy greens and citrus, didn't see any clues as to the lady who had abandoned it. Looking around and abruptly paranoid, Sakura quickly made her way down the street, putting the strange encounter out of her mind.

As she walked away, she flicked her hood back up—but not before seeing a carefully inconspicuously-dressed man, the sort they were trained to notice at the academy for being  _too_  plain, glance at her and do a tiny double-take. As much as she wanted to believe he was just admiring her stunning beauty, her every hard-earned instinct screamed that he'd recognized her.

 _Dammit_ , she thought, picking up her pace,  _Of all the luck. What the hell do I do if he did recognize me?_

**_Darling, I have just the idea….if you're right and he does know you, this will take care of whoever they send after you. Wouldn't hurt to be extra cautious…_ **

A day later, Sakura's strange physical condition hadn't changed. She was still full to the bursting with energy, and hardly needed any sleep or food to keep it up. At Inner's suggestion, Sakura had laid several false trails going in different directions from the small town, and was now returning for the last loop before concealing her chakra and heading to her true destination. She made her way back through the town—barely more than a village, really—carefully, like a ghost against the setting sun. Her face and hair were once more hidden by a dark hood, as she didn't want to risk using a genjutsu. The chakra expenditure would be a dead-giveaway of her as a shinobi, a shining beacon for the hunter-nin she suspected might already be near.

Thinking with some satisfaction back to her traps and decoys, as well as the tangled fake path she'd laid out for them, Sakura felt ready to continue her journey. The thing they would least expect was her returning to the very town she was spotted in—if, in fact, her paranoia was telling the truth and she  _had_  been recognized. Better safe than sorry, though, no matter how reckless her buzzing chakra was making her feel.

If she really had been spotted here, southwest of Konoha, then keeping to her original trajectory along the southern coast of Wind country was too risky. She would have to lay low for a while in one of the more dangerous areas where few Konoha ninja were likely to pass through. Mist, bloody as it was- Sakura smiled wryly, thinking of Kisame, who allegedly came from there- was the best option in terms of hostility to Konoha, but the worst in terms of location- entering Fire country again to reach it was out of the question. The only other option was to go North, to Rain country- it was a Bermuda Triangle of the ninja world, a place most avoided if they could. It was also rumoured to hold the main base for the Akatsuki, which Sakura firmly denied having any influence as to her sudden decision to go there. Danzo would never expect her to risk going through such a place: indeed, she hadn't been planning on it until now.

Speaking of Danzo and his agents…she focused on her chakra, and with a small flex of willpower, drew it tightly inside to a small point, dispersing the rest to mimic that of naturally-occurring chakra. It wouldn't do to have a sensor notice a chakra void in the middle of town—that was the biggest mistake most high-level shinobi made when masking their chakra. Sakura was unusual in that sense with her superb chakra control, giving her a rare talent in chakra suppression.

Focusing on her destination, Sakura felt her mouth quirk upward involuntarily. Deep down inside, she could admit that she was rather hoping to run into her three one-time lovers again, but she understood that the chances of this were miniscule.

And once she was past the area, there was a whole unexplored world out there. Perhaps, out there she might discover someplace she didn't have to hide anymore.

Sometimes Sakura caught herself daydreaming of having stayed with those infuriating, devastatingly sexy men, of exploring that easy playfulness further. She'd imagine entire discussions based on what she'd gleaned from their personalities in her head, sometimes surprising herself into a snort of laughter. At night, not daring to start a fire, she kept herself warm with the memories of their hot bodies pressed against hers, the steamy shower with Kisame, Deidara's skilled kisses, and Hidan's scorching gaze and tongue.

Then she'd come back to herself, cold and alone and on the run, and cursed the men for even showing up in her life. Because as miserable as she'd been right before meeting them, getting a taste of true, unbridled passion had only made her current situation more bitterly lonely. Thoughts of them, of that night, left Sakura with a restless, gnawing emptiness in her chest, made only worse with time. All her resolutions to not think of them only inevitably circled her thoughts back to the rowdy three.

Yet what did she honestly expect to do if she saw them again? Run into their arms and ask to stay? She scoffed to herself at the absurd thought. They'd probably try to kill her after the way she'd run off on them, for one.

 _ **You keep saying that, and yet from what I remember, killing you was the last thing on their minds after they figured out who you were**_ , Inner quipped into her musings.

 _Don't you have anything better to do than keep bringing up a moot subject?_  Sakura grumbled half-heartedly,  _It was a one-night stand, that was obvious for anyone._

 **** _No, that's what YOU expected it to be after that absolute disaster with Sasuke. That prissy pretty-boy has no tact, we already knew that—but kicking you out before breakfast, after an already spectacularly lackluster performance? You should have let me out to permanently make sure he'd never disappoint another woman in bed again.  
_  
Sakura sniggered despite herself,  _I don't think the council would have forgiven us for destroying the chance of rebuilding the Uchiha clan._

 ** _Perhaps not_** , drawled Inner,  ** _But wouldn't it be worth it, to see that little prick rightfully take over the title of Dickless from Naruto?_** **** _  
_  
 _Definitely_ , Sakura agreed immediately. That night, aside from shattering her romantic fantasies of her childhood crush, had also rather damaged her virginal perceptions of what sex should be. It had taken several intensive girl-therapy sessions with Ino to get her straight on the fact that no, guys aren't supposed to just ram their way in after ten second of foreplay and pump away for three minutes before collapsing and snoring away. Combined with Sasuke's rude dismissal of her in the morning as if she'd been nothing more than an escort he'd hired for the night had irreparably hurt their friendship, not to mention destroyed her infatuation for good.

Ino, who had been horrified that their childhood crush had so bungled up Sakura's first sexual experience, thirsted for vengeance as soon as she was done comforting her friend.

The vindictive blonde had stirred the gossip mill of Konoha with disparaging tales of Sasuke's size and prowess (or rather, lack thereof) in bed, until no kunoichi in the village could look him in the face without giggling. Needless to say, Sakura's own name was kept out of it, and Sakura had never been so glad to be on Ino's good side. It had gotten so bad that Sasuke had soon requested a long-term mission in Iwa to get away from the merciless ridicule of the Konoha shinobi population.

 _Wonder what happened to him after Danzo's takeover?_  She idly wondered, following her path through the sleepy town.

_**Probably asked for asylum in Iwa, not like they'd refuse the last Uchiha.** _   
_  
Not the last, technically._

**_Oooh, you're right! There's also the delectable older brother, also belonging to—Ding ding ding—that's right, the Akatsuki! I swear, the recruitment requirements must be simply to possess incredible eye-candy qualities, a subtle attack against kunoichi everywhere. It should be illegal, that amount of sexiness,_**  Inner grumbled.

 _Of all the things they do, their sexiness is probably the only thing that ISN'T illegal, Inner. That's why they're a CRIMINAL organization, and again, why I can't trust them_ , replied Sakura drily.

_**There you go again, with the logic I can't follow. Are you sure we're the same person? Why would you distrust them just cause they're missing nin? May I remind you, YOU'RE a missing nin too.** _

_Yeah, but my circumstances—they're different!_  Sakura protested halfheartedly. She already knew that it wasn't quite true. Finding herself on the run, and interacting with the three missing nin who, contrary to her expectations, weren't the epitome of evil, had caused her to re-evaluate her view of the ninja world. It was all a matter of luck, really—of the regime, the current values of any given village…  
 **  
** _ **I see I don't even have to point out how hypocritical that statement was,**_  Inner commented caustically.

Sakura deflated,  _Yeah, I know. It's just…_

 ** _It's just that you're not used to giving in to what you want_** , Inner said softly, knowingly.  
 _  
_ _Well, that, and the fact that it IS dangerous,_  protested Sakura.

 __ **Baby girl, you know very well that a life without danger is not a life worth living.  
**  
Sakura didn't reply, for her exit out of town had led her to the intersection close to where she'd seen the strange woman.

Unable to help herself, she found her feet turning off the vetted path her clones had made sure was safe, and veered towards the storefront of the grocery market. There, under the awning- that's where she'd seen the lady.

Sakura felt a strange pang in her chest. That had been her first encounter with anyone with hair like hers, including even her parents.

Her father was a mild-mannered merchant with bright red hair incongruous with his bland personality, while her mother was a steely, traditional housewife with white-blond hair and green eyes a much darker shade than Sakura's.

There had been teasing at the academy that their combined haircolors had created such a ridiculous shade of pink for a prospective ninja, but Sakura had never brought it up to her unamused mother. A woman who, despite her distant coolness, was still the only mother Sakura had ever known, whom she would never see again. Nor her father, who had been so busy she'd only seen him a couple times a year since she was six, but was still the man who'd helped her persuade Okaa-san to let her into the academy, who'd carried her on his shoulders before then, and who always made sure to bring her a pretty bauble from his travels even long after she'd outgrown such girly things.

Sakura blinked out the sudden moisture from her eyes, and focused instead on the memory of the strange woman who'd looked so remarkably familiar a few days ago. Was she a distant relative, perhaps? Maybe an aunt or cousin, proof that Sakura's coloring really did belong in the family no matter what vicious neighbors gossiped…

She stared closely at the dimmed storefront of the nondescript grocery store, probably one of a half dozen in the small town, closed for the day already. When her tight scrutiny failed to make an obvious clue jump out, she had to snort at her own curiosity. Clearly, life on the run was catching up to her if she was seriously entertaining searching further for a lady she'd made eye contact with days ago. Shaking her head, Sakura turned away and started walking back towards the crossroads.

The ping of a chakra signature on the edge of her awareness was her only warning before instinct made her leap away from a kunai thrown with unerring accuracy at her back. If she'd been any less aware, it would have punctured her lung and she'd have been a dead woman walking. Of course, if she'd not strayed from her set path to indulge this idle curiosity, she probably wouldn't even be caught in this ambush.

Tossing aside these thoughts, Sakura broke into a run without even looking back at whoever had attacked her. This part of town was the least advantageous to her as a battleground- too many people, and the earth-based techniques she favored would be too destructive in such a crowded place. Ducking another hail of kunai, Sakura took to the rooftops, leaping across the shingles towards the outskirts of the village. Fortunately, it wasn't far, and there was an area she headed to now where one of her clones had done some last-minute trap setting.

As she ran, she expanded her chakra awareness behind her to feel the shinobi attacking her. Three—no, four signatures, one hanging back a bit and three right on her heels. Right. Putting on a burst of speed, Sakura gained a bit of distance and erupted onto a dirt-covered clearing surrounded by a couple abandoned, crumbling buildings. The sun had set but night had yet to truly fall, bleaching the clearing an odd violet-grey monochrome.

Sakura immediately created another clone and popped the first one, receiving its memories of where the traps were. Using the headhunter jutsu she'd used less than a week ago against the Akatsuki, she disappeared into the earth and let her clone take her spot.

Just in time, too, because not even a second later three ninja burst through the clearing, and wasted no time in attacking Sakura's clone. The clone jumped back from the swing of a katana from one masked nin while another swiped a kunai where her neck had been. Mid-air, the clone flicked her wrist and sent a flurry of senbon spraying out at the three masked shinobi that had appeared. Root, Sakura half-registered, while making handsigns underground with careful precision. One of the shinobi hadn't managed to block all the senbon and was now limping slightly. Her clone had hit a semi-vital spot—while the Root agent wouldn't feel it immediately, it was slowly paralyzing him as blood flow was cut off. Hopefully, he wouldn't last long enough to be a problem.

Sakura could sense the chakra of the fourth shinobi teasing her senses as they remained hidden, and decided to ignore it for now. She had more pressing concerns—such as the Root ANBU that moved to rush her clone all at once. Her copy struck a fist into the ground in Tsunade's signature move, moving the earth and creating a crater- only half the size of what Sakura herself would have created, but substantial nonetheless. As they were tossed aside in the explosion, Sakura scoffed a little, surely they would know to avoid that particular technique? They regained their balance quickly, however, and started to push back her clone into a defensive position.

Quickly finishing up her handsigns and sending a command to her clone to pretend to do the same, Sakura used a doton jutsu to elevate herself onto a tall platform above her attackers, emerging standing on top of it but too tall for them to see her.

Clasping her fingers together in a quick series of hand signals, she leeched the water from the air and nearby vegetation to create a dense mist obstructing their vision. She'd researched this technique after wave and Zabuza, and had bugged Kakashi until he taught it to her. But where normally she only produced a barely effective film, now the mist was thick enough she could hardly see her own hands in front of her. And her reserves barely had a dent in them. Huh.

Shelving the anomaly for later, Sakura focused on the task at hand. Quickly creating another shadow clone, she left it a handful of explosive notes and walked back down the earthen pillar she'd created. Pressing herself tight against it, she extended her senses to feel for the enemy shinobi who, with their vision all but gone, had paused their assault, wary of traps.

Sakura focused almost entirely on her chakra sensing, relying on it rather than sight to keep track of her enemies. In this, she would have a strong advantage, and could pick them off one by one much like Zabuza had been famous for. Sakura was briefly distracted, however, by three distant pings on her chakra sensing net, so far they shouldn't even have registered. They were vaguely familiar, but she shoved that information aside at Inner and focused on the hunter-nin just in time to duck a sweep of a katana where her head had been.

It seemed they had a sensor of their own, Sakura cursed with a jolt of adrenaline. That had been close. The whoosh of the weapon had alerted the other two of her location, and the kunoichi regretted her moment of inattention as they joined the attack. Deflecting another sweep of the katana with a kunai, Sakura imbued her limbs with chakra-enhanced strength and…over-balanced, making the technique fizzle into nothing. Thankfully, she managed to still mostly deflect the blow into a glancing scrape along her hip, and immediately leaped far away from the three, unnerved.

First the over-powered mist technique, now her reliable chakra control failing her during a rush of adrenaline...Sakura needed to finish the battle before her body sprung any other surprises.

Fortunately, at that moment the same ninja she'd gotten with her senbon earlier finally gave in to the pressure building up in his artery, collapsing on the ground unconscious. The other two didn't even spare him a glance as they leaped after her through the clearing mist.

The next few precious minutes, Sakura did her best to evade them and bring them back closer to the column where her clone awaited, hidden. It was like the most dangerous game of tag she'd ever played, flitting between the two while collecting key threads of ninja wire her clone had set up around the clearing earlier that day. Every once in awhile, she triggered a trap, sending an array of kunai or setting off an explosive tag right in front of her pursuers: enough to stall and disorient them, but not quite enough to fully incapacitate them.

Sakura made several seemingly unnecessary runs around her column with the emotionless Root agents behind her, following step by step in somewhat predictable shinobi protocol. It might also have been hard for them to think with the constant explosions and kunai attacks attacking them with seeming randomness.

Still, though, Sakura thought with some derision, if only Danzo had tried teaching them some independent thought, they might not be so easily led around right where she wanted them. She, on the other hand, felt free, exhilarated despite the uncertainty of the situation, power thrumming through her veins and begging to be used.

Focusing tightly on her chakra, Sakura made doubly sure it was balanced perfectly for her strength technique—it wouldn't do to have another strange accident. Then, with a sudden leap and a deft, chakra-enhanced jerk, she tightened the wire she'd been laying around her pillar. Success! The two shinobi were caught against the earthen column tightly, immobilized by her ninja wire from head to toe.

It probably wouldn't hold them for long, but she didn't need much time. With some regret that there wasn't another way, Sakura braced herself. Killing wasn't something she enjoyed, even after all her years as a kunoichi, but letting these go back to Danzo alive wasn't an option. It hardly comforted her to know that anything resembling humanity had probably been washed from their brains years ago.

Sakura readied her chakra and was about to set off the explosive tags her clone had on the column when she felt something. A cold, yet oddly soothing wave of something was emanating from the fallen root agent on the ground. As she turned to watch him, he gave a last shuddering breath, and she felt him die. The sensation was jarring, unlike anything she'd ever felt before.

Her senses were suddenly overwhelmed by a dark, cold wave of (nothing. cold. Void) unfurling from the direction of the dying shinobi, then falling back into stillness. The ripples nearly reached Sakura's feet, and she trembled at the thought of them reaching her, the echoes, even from a distance, caressing her soul with dark promises of cold oblivion, stillness, entropy. Death.

Sakura's control on her chakra, connected to the explosive tags, faltered. That was all it took. With a triumphant roar, an explosive wave of power tore free from deep within her coils, saturating the earthen pillar and the explosive tags with more elemental chakra than she thought possible. She felt chunks of the earth itself transform into an unstable, explosive element, her stone pillar dotted with veritable dynamite just from her chakra alone. And then, as she pulled back in alarm- the structure lost its stability, and exploded.

Sakura saw the raging, impossible inferno spreading its eager, grasping embrace towards her, ready to consume its erstwhile creator- before something hard and fast collided with her and the world disappeared in a flutter of wind.

Opening her eyes, she only had time to see alarmed green eyes looking her over before a bone-deep exhaustion hit her and she blacked out.


	11. Deliquescence

 

Sakura woke slowly, consciousness an elusive state that she reached for through murky dreams and visions. Finally mustering up the energy to open her eyes, she found herself in a cave, a smokeless fire sending eerie shadows dancing on the walls. For the moment, she seemed to be alone, though she saw a pack lying by the fire and felt beneath herself a traveling futon she most definitely didn't own. Someone must have saved her from…the explosion, she remembered, caused by her own strangely fluctuating chakra.

Running a quick self-scan, Sakura found that the surplus chakra that had been crackling merrily through her veins for the past few days was gone, in its place a gnawing void in the center of her chest. As if bringing attention to it made it stir, Sakura nearly doubled over in pain as a ravenous hunger pulsed in her chest. Closer to her center than her stomach, it didn't seem to be for food or drink, yet gnawed at her soul with the emptiness of it. It robbed her of breath, threatened to take over— _Inner!_ She called out desperately, and, feeling her stir, shoved the overwhelming sensation at her alternate ego before it took over.

_**What the—oh, Kami! Alright, let me try to deal with this, but—fuck, this is intense. Sugar, you better find a solution quick or else I'm not gonna be much help to you ever again.** _

Sakura sent a vague sense of apology at Inner for making her deal with the awful sensation, but she needed her wits about her. She'd been saved, or captured, by an unknown entity. She had a suspicion, based mostly on the vague recollection of green eyes beneath a sweep of magenta, but was wary in case that had been a dream. Or in case it wasn't.

In response to her apology, Inner sent back a grumbling acknowledgement that had an alarming note of strain running through it, and a mental door between them seemed to slam shut. The relief was instantaneous, though she could still feel echoes of that aching emptiness in the cavern of her soul. Chakra had carved a cave in her core like a spring of water. Short of filling it up again, Sakura didn't know how to make that new hunger go away—but neither did she know how to replenish what was lost. Chakra exhaustion didn't seem right, for she checked her reserves and found them at the same level as they'd been since Sakura had reached adulthood. Yet something was missing...She decided to shelve this problem for later. Right now, Sakura had faith in her alter ego; at least for a few days while she dealt with this.

Sitting up, Sakura checked over the rest of her body, noting with relief that aside from a couple tender blisters on her cheeks, forehead, and forearms from the blast and the scrape on her hip from the katana, she didn't have any injuries. The pink-haired medic didn't want to risk using her chakra and triggering another strange imbalance, so she decided to let them be.

She didn't hear the footsteps of the person who'd rescued her, so when the strange woman from the town entered the cave silently, Sakura's suspicions that she was a shinobi were confirmed. Upon seeing Sakura sitting up, the woman's eyebrows twitched briefly in surprise, before she gathered her face into unimpressed lines.

"What are you doing up—never mind that it shouldn't be possible—but you need rest!" With brisk energy, the woman walked over to Sakura's side and her hands glowed green. Sakura flinched back in distrust, and the woman seemed like she wanted to roll her eyes, if only the gesture wasn't too unrefined.

"Sit still, girl, and let me check you over. I didn't save you from that blast just to kill you now. Seems that hoping for some common sense was too much to wish for from my descendant."

Sakura's mouth was suddenly dry, and she stilled entirely, allowing the woman to run her hands over her body in a diagnostic jutsu.

"You…" Her voice was scratchy, and she had to clear her throat before continuing. "We're related?"

The woman gave her a look reminiscent of Tsunade's at a particularly dense intern.

"Well, deafness was certainly not a quality I passed on to you," She drawled, and now her tone uncomfortably reminded Sakura of Inner at her most sarcastic, "Surely you can see for yourself the physical markers, if you don't trust my word." She looked pointedly at the lightly singed strands of pink hair trailing over Sakura's shoulder.

"Well…I'm just surprised, because my parents never mentioned another female relative who was still alive," Sakura tentatively replied, wincing as a blister received a probing poke.

The older woman snorted, somehow making the action refined, and leaned back, apparently satisfied that Sakura wasn't about to keel over dead.

"Parents? I highly doubt either of them can be called that, considering you look remarkably like a grown-up version of my daughter's babe. Stolen in the middle of the night, though with the bloodline purges only having just finished, we thought someone had cottoned on and tried to eliminate us. We were only surprised that you were the only one killed. Amid the following escape...Well, Akane was killed shortly after and I didn't even consider you might be alive…" Her green eyes had a faraway look, and she seemed lost in the past as she trailed off. Then, with a visible effort, she focused back on Sakura and smiled tightly. "Clearly, I gave up on you for dead too soon, but it appears you grew up alright…as impossible as that seems."

Sakura's head swam. The implications—her parents…not her parents? She wanted to deny it, but the older woman's familiar features, the remnants of a deep grief lurking in the shadows of her eyes, and Sakura's own memories of her parents… _Her father, sometimes looking at her with distant contemplation before clearing his face and beckoning her for a hug and a treat…Her mother, always so demanding and strict, overly protective to the extreme as if Sakura might be snatched away at any moment….The calculation in their eyes throughout her early childhood, mellowing out into relieved disappointment as puberty came and went with hardly a splash…_

Sakura blinked back tears. Every child had some suspicions that they'd been adopted, that they had real, somehow magical parents that would whisk them away to a new, exciting life. Every child, that is, except Sakura.

She knew her parents loved her—or rather, had grown to love her, as some of her earlier childhood memories had featured a distant coolness and a crippling sense of insecurity that stemmed from this unconsciously felt rejection.

But so desperate had been her need to belong, to be loved, that she'd violently rejected any such suspicions where another child would have hung onto them like scraps of proof that they weren't really related. Where everyone else said that her hair was unnatural, she firmly believed it was the logical combination of white-blonde and red hair. While the other children had their parent's unconditional love whereas she needed to work hard for every scrap of affection, this was ok: it just meant her parents were concerned about her future as a shinobi and wanted her to succeed. And when the stress of living up to those expectations she set for herself had splintered her personality in two, creating Inner as a way to suppress all unacceptable behavior, Sakura was happy: perhaps now, it would be easier to make her parents happy with her. That it had ultimately worked, and their ill-concealed relief at her incredible self-control had relaxed into unconditional affection and later, true love, had been proof enough for Sakura that the split was a good thing.

The sudden deep, irrefutable knowledge that they hadn't been her parents at all made Sakura sway where she sat, and the other woman's (her grandmother!) eyes sharpened on Sakura as her face drained of color.

Then her gaze softened. "You didn't know," the stranger guessed. It wasn't a question.

Sakura shook her head numbly.

The older woman sat down closer to the fire and reached into its heat, retrieving a pot of near-boiling water. As Sakura struggled to process the knowledge she'd been denying her whole life, the pink-haired lady unearthed a tea set from her pack and set about steeping the leaves and pouring with practiced ease. Her movements were sensual, graceful, and Sakura suddenly had an image of the woman in her younger days. Such poise combined with the beauty in her delicate bone structure and the exotic hair color must have had people scrambling for her attention. Even now, with her skin made fragile and lightly wrinkled, and the blue veins in her hands protruding with age, the woman was lovely. A flare of old insecurity rose up in Sakura for a moment, and she yearned fiercely for that poise, the graceful manner. The thought came that if this woman had raised her, she might have turned out far different than the battle-hardened assassin she was.

Once the tea was ready, the older woman passed a cup to Sakura, unaware of the medic's inner observation.

"Drink. It will help center you," She said, and took a long sip from her own cup.

Sakura stared numbly at the cup in her hands. Steam danced in light swirls atop the liquid, scattering as a gust of her breath disturbed the surface. She inhaled, and the scent of green tea and blended herbs grounded her. Tasting it tentatively, she was surprised to find it well-balanced and delicate, with foreign flavors mixing pleasantly on her tongue and leaving a faintly bittersweet aftertaste.

"This is good," She said after a minute of staring into the fire in silence, "What is it?"

"Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that," the woman deflected, "Suffice it to say that it has been helpful in controlling our family's…gift…for a few centuries now."

Sakura glanced back up at the woman speculatively, "That's the second time you mentioned something about our family…is there a bloodline?"

Her relative chuckled low in her throat, a languid and surprisingly throaty sound. "You could say that. It's not a kekkei genkai, nothing so obvious- but when it does present—" and here she glanced meaningfully at Sakura's hair—"it's more useful than most of them put together. More dangerous too," she added.

Sakura nodded. "I'm guessing I don't have it? I think I would have noticed it if I had some sort of strange power."

The woman gave her a perplexed stare. "Well, normally, I'd say no, despite the physical marker," and here she tapped her own tightly gathered pink bun. "It's impossible that you would have survived through puberty without being guided through it, and there's never been an account of it presenting late…"

She took another swallow of her tea, and off handedly continued, "However, based on what I have seen today I believe it is safe to say that you do, in fact, possess it."

Sakura started, nearly spurting tea out her nose, and coughing. The lady waited patiently for her to collect herself, though Sakura could swear she saw an amused glint in her eye that belied the timing of the comment. "Excuse me, but— _what_?"

"Well, where do you think those explosions came from? And that death-based gift certainly doesn't run in our family. Even if you had a primary water affinity, too, our chakra reserves are never large enough on their own to create as much mist as you did, girl."

Sakura startled. Why did that sound familiar? More than that, the statement tugged at a half-forgotten memory from the battle.

"So it was you who were the fourth signature that I sensed," Sakura breathed, that particular piece falling into place.

"Indeed. Having seen the startling likeness of my granddaughter, how could I not at least confirm that she had the continuation of our bloodline?" The old lady answered.

As a matter of fact, Sakura thought, looking at her closer, she didn't look old enough to be a grandmother. She had a few wrinkles, but looked no older than fifty at the most, not nearly old enough to have a nineteen year old granddaughter, unless she'd been a child with child.

"How old are you?" she asked suspiciously, before pressing a hand to her mouth in mortification. The older woman only raised an eyebrow at her social gaffe. "I'm so sorry, that was horribly rude of me," she hastily backtracked. "I only meant, you look far too young to be a grandmother…" Sakura awkwardly trailed off, beet red.

The older woman not-snorted that delicate huff of air again, and eyed Sakura speculatively. "Straighten up child, I'm not going to bite. No granddaughter of mine is going to be a meek little wallflower…and the answer to your question has to do with our bloodline. My own mother had a theory it had something to do with the vitality we take in, but she died before she could finish her research, and I was never the studious type."

She paused, seeming to straighten out her thoughts. "Ah, so much you've missed out on learning…Have I mentioned that I'm stunned that you're still alive and sane, girl?" She peered at Sakura, as if the younger girl would go raving mad at any moment. When that didn't happen and instead Sakura nodded in response, the woman continued.

"Well, the most common term for it—well, I say common but since we're the last of our kind that hardly applies anymore—is the bloodline theft bloodline. Whoever came up with that had a terrible sense of humor, but alas, it's what we are stuck with," she said drily.

Sakura was intrigued and a little horrified, "bloodline theft? One of the most notorious crimes in the ninja world!?"

"When it involves kidnapping children or forced pregnancy, sure," scoffed the older lady, "But not in our case. For one, it only presents in the women of the family, as far as we can tell. Which is unusual in and of itself. For another, it only presents after puberty. Can you guess what it involves yet?"

Sakura thought for a minute. For a bloodline to only present in women was not only rare, it was unprecedented as far as she knew. Kunoichi, aside from having some chakra control advantages to compensate for lesser physical strength, rarely had any difference in missions from their male counterparts. The only exception where they dominated was seduction missions. Stereotypical, but no less true. This thought collided with the second clue about puberty, and Sakura blushed violently, rejecting the thought even as it came.

Her newly discovered grandmother, who had been watching her face and following her thought process, chuckled in amusement at her look of mortification.

"Oh, don't be so embarrassed. From the look of things, you are most certainly not a virgin. But yes, you guessed correctly. The secret to our bloodline, the one to end all bloodlines—is good old-fashioned sex."

Hearing the word come from a poised older woman Sakura was beginning to acknowledge really was her grandmother sent another wave of burning heat across her cheeks, and Sakura buried her face in her knees. The older woman laughed again, and patted her shoulder.

"Cheer up dear, it's not so bad. In fact, it should be a joyful thing, because rather than activating upon things like mortal danger or murder like those silly Sharingan, ours is triggered by profound sexual bliss. Or in other words, when you reach a perfectly emotionally and physically vulnerable alignment with someone else, your biggest power comes into play. A bit of a double-edged sword, that, but in the end it makes us stronger and our lives richer."

The old woman spoke with such a matter-of-fact tone that Sakura's blush began to subside and she listened closely to the explanation. It was intriguing, even if she nearly choked when her grandmother called the Sharingan, the most powerful kekkei genkai in the world, silly.

"Alright," she said slowly, "So it activates via…sex." Here she blushed lightly, but valiantly continued, "But what does it actually  _do_? You mentioned bloodline theft, but surely it's impossible to literally copy the skill from the DNA of another being? At least, not permanently…" Her scientific mind raced with the possibilities.

"Ah, there's that analytical mindset. Skipped a generation in me but both my mother and yours had it," said the rose-haired lady approvingly. "You're close—we don't permanently steal their abilities, but rather siphon off any imbalances in their chakra to ourselves. I'm sure you noticed that your own chakra is naturally perfectly balanced—" Sakura nodded, and she continued,"—but for the vast majority of shinobi, especially powerful ones, that is not the case. So when we, to put it delicately,  _align_ , we balance out their own chakra while taking in the excess. The unexpected side effect that our shinobi ancestors discovered was that not only do we receive the overbalanced chakra, but also the affinities that lay within that chakra somehow remain isolated and intact during the transfer."

"So you can temporarily use the same affinity and gifts as the other shinobi, just until the borrowed chakra runs out," finished Sakura, excitedly. This was unprecedented!

"Indeed. Our own low, perfectly neutral reserves naturally adjust and, in the case of several competing chakra transfers, act as buffers."

The woman suddenly finished her drink in a last gulp and leaned forward towards Sakura, her expression serious. "Now, for the downside. It appears—" Here she cut herself off, looking around. Sakura too grew alert at the sudden movement, and gingerly extended her chakra sensing net.

…There! A chakra signature that was moving towards them quickly. Too quickly to be anything but a skilled shinobi. The older woman paled, and burst into action. She quickly tossed out the wet remains of the tea into the fire and packed the tea set into her bag, sealing up Sakura's futon and tossing that in there as well.

"It appears my enemy has caught up with me," she said wryly. "I must go, lest I alert them to your existence as well. That would be disastrous for all of us."

She looked over Sakura's face almost tenderly, hungrily memorizing every feature. Sakura did the same, grasping her hand and looking into dark green eyes shaped so like her own, the forehead almost as wide as Sakura's, a jaw more pronounced than her own and a pointier nose…But for those differences, it was her own face. How surreal, after all those years of longing for irrefutable proof of family, she would get it while on the run, from a stranger.

The woman spoke, urgently, even as the chakra signature was only two kilometers away. "Listen, my child, there is still so much you don't know, haven't been taught…above all, trust in your instincts, and when your body tells you to do something, you figure out a way to make it happen! Now, the most important downside of our gift—it unleashes a hunger within us, for more of that connection and chakra. Small minds would call this gift dark, devouring, immoral—but you must know, surely, that no weapon and no power in itself is truly evil. It all depends on how you use it. And grandchild, I sense a greater capacity for goodness in you than any of our line. But be careful! You mustn't deny the urges too long, else they will consume you! Above all," Here she pressed a firm kiss to Sakura's brow, "Have faith in yourself, as my granddaughter and the last of my line."

Gathering up a small bundle, she thrust it into Sakura's hands. "Here, the tea. It's been in our family for generations, use it sparingly—but it helps calm and control the urges. You'll understand in time."

She glanced over her shoulder, the chakra signature was nearly upon them. The old woman stood, the weight of her years visible in the set of her shoulders and the look in her eyes, if not on her deceptively youthful face.

Sakura swallowed past the sudden thickness in her throat and said, "Grandmother, perhaps I can help, surely two against one…"

"No, my child, with your bloodline untrained I'm afraid you'd be more a liability than anything," her grandmother dismissed firmly, but not unkindly. "Besides, you hardly have any chakra at all—and I'd far prefer it if this particular man didn't know another of my kind existed. He's not as much a danger to me, I'm not even sure he'd kill me if he could. But you—oh, I wouldn't trust him with you in a million years."

Sakura started to nod—then suddenly, the approaching chakra signature was close enough that she could discern the subtleties of it. And, surprisingly, recognize it.

"Jiraya-sama?" She breathed in surprise. Her grandmother's head whipped back at her sharply.

"You know him?"

Sakura was confused, "Yes, of course I do! He's my teammate's sensei…my shishou's teammate…"

At her words, the elder woman paled drastically, and closed her eyes against some inner blow. Then, bringing herself together, she exhaled a shaky breath and opened her eyes again.

"Konoha….should have figured," she laughed bitterly. "all this time, and I was the one being played."

She looked back at Sakura, who was staring at her in incomprehension. With sudden urgency, the woman stepped back towards the younger girl, clasping her hands.

"I suppose this changes little, in the end. Just know—don't trust your village. Their crimes go farther than I'd even dreamed… In the end, you are still my granddaughter. My last and only kin. Don't let anyone know you know me, or about our bloodline. Keep our secrets. Hoard your strength. And perhaps, one day, we will reunite for good….."

With these fierce words, filled with some unnamed emotion, the older lady smoothed a hand over Sakura's rose-colored hair and stood.

Sakura sensed something new bubbling up within her grandmother's chakra, the flavor twisting and turning until it snapped into place once more. She gasped. Were she to only use her chakra sense, she would have sworn that it was Jiraya in front of her! Seized by sudden doubt that this had all been a trick, Sakura sprang to her feet—only to calm down as she caught the faintest undercurrent of her grandmother's own barely-familiar chakra beneath it. In fact, once she calmed a bit, the chakra signature in front of her more resembled that of a close relative of Jiraya- quite similar, but with some of the older lady's own flavor that she could not fully suppress.

The woman in question created three clones. Two she sent east, one south in Jiraya's direction, and for herself, suddenly masked her chakra almost entirely, leaving but a teasing tendril, and turned to the west. She gave one last long, searching look to Sakura's face, seeming to etch every plane of it in her memory, and for a moment, her eyes revealed a deep, barely-leashed pain— pain that was decades old, losses of daughter and grandchild and likely so much more- and now torn raw again with this too-brief meeting, hope a sharper knife than any. Having the unexpected promise of family dangled before her face before reality snatched it away was making Sakura's own eyes feel tight; she couldn't imagine what it must be like for the older woman. Her respect for her grandmother's inner strength suddenly rose tenfold, for not only did the woman's iron control keep her inner turmoil from the rest of her face, but she was ready act as decoy to draw the enemy away: and all for a granddaughter she had only just met. Sakura's heart ached to think of what it might have been like to have this fierce, graceful woman raise her.

"Take care of yourself, the last of my line. May your hunt be ever-fruitful, your protectors strong, and your legacy lasting." With those formal, almost ritual-sounding words, the rose-haired lady turned towards the west and, with a speed not quite rivaling Jiraya's own, loped gracefully into the woods.

In the distance, Sakura strained to sense Jiraya. After Konoha had fallen to Danzo's control, he had simply…not returned. Just kept sending messages with information back every once in a while, as if he were still the spymaster—and ignored all missives directing him to come back to Konoha. It drove Danzo crazy, but Jiraya was just that powerful and well-connected. The attitude did give all of the old crowd hope, however—if the resident spymaster, the Toad Sannin seemed to be irreverently biding his time, then perhaps there was hope for Konoha to be put to rights again.

As much as she felt an immediate impulse to go towards Jiraya, see a familiar face and seek refuge with him—her grandmother's warning was fresh in her mind. Perhaps…she should at least wait until she was sure she had herself under control before seeking him out. And getting caught in between the two was definitely not something she looked forward to.

Sakura's close attention to Jiraya's signature allowed her to recognize when he met with the first clone, which had been sent in his direction, and sense when he dispelled it. He then seemed to split into two—a shadow clone, Sakura thought—and sent the clone after her grandmother's own copies, while himself following her true trail. He didn't bother to suppress his chakra, and Sakura kept track of him until he was too far away to sense. She hoped that her savior would be alright. And that Jiraya would be as well. Kami, what a mess.

With a sudden pang, Sakura realized she didn't even know the name of the woman who had saved her, her own grandmother. Nor did she know her true family name, or anything at all really besides the vague knowledge of a bloodline she supposedly had and the instructions to 'obey her instincts', whatever that meant. All she had was that brief, cryptic explanation and the cloth bundle of tea in her arms.

Desperate to find some clue as to the mysterious relative who had exited her life as quickly as she'd entered it, Sakura untied the pack. Inside were tight bundles of tea, about thirty of them, bound with silken red string so densely that they might have been little mesh bags. Untying one of them, Sakura discovered the reason- aside from what seemed like a typical strand of green tea, there were small fine herbs, both light and dark, that crumbled away without the meshed string to hold them. Later, Sakura would analyze them for content and perhaps be able to recreate them. For now, she tore off a piece of her shirt from the bottom and poured the displaced tea mix in, tying it off with part of the string, cutting off the rest of the red length of it to analyze later. Her parents had been merchants, so Sakura would have a greater chance than most to figure out where the silk came from.

The fabric that made up the pack itself was dark silk as well, a surprisingly luxurious material for a woman on the run. Upon closer inspection, the cloth was aged, permanently creased in places—but the weave was thick and tight enough that it would not tear easily. There were intricate patterns of deep olive green within the dark blue, almost purple fabric, rather like moonlit leaves against a night sky. Upon closer inspection, that was exactly what the design entailed: delicate outlines of thorny vines and round leaves tapering to sharp points. Not the leaves from a tree, but some wild flower or vine. Wild rose, perhaps, though there were no flowers in the dark fabric.

It was in the corner of the cloth, hidden beneath a worn crease, that Sakura found her first real clue: the monogrammed kanji for  _hamanashi,_ the beach pear—another name for the tenacious rose bush that grew along water. Rosa rugosa was the name Sakura knew it by, and she knew quite a lot. Found commonly in water country, though occurring in other countries as well, this rose flourished where little else did, along sand dunes and saltwater, in soil both tough and tender. But the true value of it lay in its small red fruit that came after the delicate pink bloom: while simply a delicious delicacy to civilians, to shinobi it was priceless because it balanced their chakra and was one of the few cures for chakra poisoning. What an apt symbol for her family, Sakura mused—for if the stylized kanji didn't point to it, the gold-green monogrammed rose bush within a pale pink circle certainly indicated a family crest.

Sakura herself had worn the Haruno crest—a simple white circle—all her life, and it had never called to her as this symbol did. She couldn't remember it consciously, but some part of her must have, for she felt a warmth of recognition as she stared at it. A part of her wanted to take it and wear it proudly upon her arm, without even fully understanding what it stood for—but another part, the sensible part that remembered her grandmother's warning, knew that it would attract more enemies and trouble than she could afford.

So it was with some regret that Sakura folded the fabric over again to hide the silken weave against itself, and bundled up the tea back into a tight pack. Looking around the cave, she experienced a moment of panic that her own pack wasn't there—while she had little inside it, the sealed scrolls she had on medicine were invaluable—and thought that it had been left behind, destroyed in the explosion. Then she felt the straps of it upon her shoulders, and realized that it's bulk had become so familiar that she hadn't noticed it weighing down her back. With all the distractions that had come her way since she'd woken, who could blame her?

Taking it off now, she found that it just barely had room to hold her grandmother's silken tea bundle. Sakura closed the mouth of her pack over it as best she could and got up, feeling strangely hollow. The day had thrown so many surprises at her that she was half expecting to go into shock, but shored up her willpower. She couldn't afford to be weak right now, not even—or especially not—after the revelations she'd had today.

The remainder of the red silk string she'd cut was left in her hand. On an impulse, Sakura used it to tie her hair back into a low ponytail, wrapping it around several times and then tying off the knot, so the loose ends flowed down with her own hair, two long strands of red amid her pink.

As Sakura stood in the mouth of the cave, the sun chose that moment to pierce through the dense foliage of the woods around her and cast a blinding ray of light into the cavern, warming the chill of the underground. She'd had all of dawn with her grandmother, and now the day was truly unfolding.

A final glance at the empty cave behind her showed the last embers of the dying fire made pale by the sunlight across them, just as the memory of her grandmother sitting against that fire, telling Sakura of their family history, was pale and almost unbelievable by the light of day. Yet Sakura felt the extra weight of the tea between her shoulder blades, felt the weight of the knowledge she'd learned heavy on her soul, the knowledge that her world as she knew it was turning into one lie after another. Above all, she felt the echoes of the gnawing hunger within her, escaping even Inner's iron grasp, urging her in one direction—north.

One thing her grandmother had said reverberated in her mind. Trust your instincts. So Sakura trusted in her last living kin, in her words, and in the tugging deep within her soul. She went north.

 


	12. Crystallization

 

 

After a day of travel, the pangs of the newfound hunger were hitting Sakura with increasing frequency. She could literally feel Inner's struggle to keep it at bay, and shuddered to think what she would have had to endure without her alter ego.

As night began to fall, Sakura decided to take a chance and stop at a tavern in a small village on her way. Calling the handful of scattered houses and carefully-tended fields a village was stretching it, but she was glad there were enough of them to warrant the small pub.

She entered the dimly lit building and made her way to the bar. The interior and location were completely different, but something about the ambiance made her want to look around to see if there were three familiar figures in the corner of the room again, breaking the smoky silence with their voices. Alas, the bar only had some civilian farmers who had turned their head at her entrance, and there was no shinobi presence nearby.

Thinking to quell one hunger with the sating of another, Sakura ordered two servings of fish and rice, and some rice wine, then forked over a chunk of her dwindling supply of money. She'd have to do something about that, but first—the food came, and Sakura busied herself eating. As she ate, she thought over what she needed to do next.

The most immediate problem, the one with the biggest potential to change all of her plans, was the fact that now Danzo knew she was alive. The shinobi she'd killed had been a complete Root unit of three, so Danzo wouldn't know they were dead, and had failed in killing her, for another day at least.

Sakura hoped Kakashi and Sai and the others would be alright, but she was also certain that they'd taken the time she'd been gone to cover their own tracks after helping her. That Danzo would find out about her survival had been a given, but she'd hoped for a little more time, at least to get out of the Elemental nations…no helping it now.

She was out of fire country now, at least, which was better than some of her more pessimistic projections. Danzo couldn't outright send hunter nin after her across borders, for it would violate too many treaties. It would take him some time to file her as a missing-nin rather than deceased, and get that authorization. But sending more covert root assassins? That, he could do, as he'd proven already.

As Sakura saw it, she had two options. One, to continue with the original plan, of escaping beyond the borders of the elemental nations, but accelerate it. As a last resort, she could summon her biggest slug and ask to be teleported, but that always cost her too much chakra for comfort. She'd barely had enough reserves to summon the queen slug without fainting—some things even perfect control couldn't completely make up for. In her current state, she wasn't sure she wanted to risk it.

The second option…Sakura hesitated to even consider it, but Kisame's words kept coming back to her:

_"My point is…you're a fucking medic."_

_"There you go again with the obvious."_

_"We need a fucking medic."_

And then later, when she'd been hiding underground and they bickered:

"… _I wanted to recruit her."_

_"You think she could heal Itachi?"_

_"I was hoping, at least."_

Sakura had valiantly ignored those words and the flutter of possibility they inspired back when she'd been with the nin, too intent on surviving…and then, she'd been distracted by other things. She'd not taken the time to really consider what they might mean.

_**Oh goodie, you're finally coming to your senses.** _

_More like losing them,_  retorted Sakura,  _I can't believe I'm even considering this._

_**I can't believe it's taken you so long. Is it really so hard to believe that the organization needs a medic? Konoha is a rarity in terms of the sheer number of skilled medics it has, and among those, you're Tsunade's only equal in terms of skill. And your medical knowledge is getting there.** _

_I suppose I can see why they'd try to recruit me. And technically, I'm a missing nin now too, though they seemed far too happy with my chakra punch. That was disturbing._

A snort,  _ **Yeah, happy is one word for it. I thought they were gonna take you right there and then. And don't be so surprised: a lot of guys are turned on by power. You've been oblivious, but the things some of the jounin have talked about in the lounge….well, Ino's had to step in on behalf of your virtue a couple times, that's for sure.**_

 _I still can't get over how you notice all this stuff I don't,_ grumbled Sakura, though with an edge of admiration.

_**Eh, this was actually from a shadow clone you posted in the lounge that one time when you were staking out Kakashi for additional training. I filtered out all the irrelevant stuff up to the moment he came, but that particular conversation stuck with me.** _

_How strange, I would have thought I'd remember everything my clones experience…though now that I think about it, that would probably be far too overwhelming. Who was talking about me, anyways?_ She wondered curiously.

_**Genma and a few of the others, Raidou and Kotetsu, I think. Oh, and Izumo. I remember Genma most of all 'cause he did this thing with his senbon when he was describing—you know what, here, I'll show you.** _

Before Sakura could say another word, a memory bubbled up from her subconscious, the sort of flashback that was usually triggered by a potent smell or sight, superimposed over the bar in front of her.

{  _Genma was lounging against one of the couches in the Jounin room in a way that was almost indecent, sprawling out with one muscled thigh up against the leather arm, propped up on an elbow and grinning at the other men around him. Sakura's clone, from where it was hidden with an expertly layered genjutsu behind a potted plant, had a front and center view of the four Jounin, who were in the midst of conversation._

_"I don't know about that Hana girl, she may be strong but she's a bit too rough and wild for me. I prefer more refined strength, the kind you don't expect. Like that delicious apprentice of Tsunade's. Now that girl I'd give a lot to have in my bed."_

_Izumo raised an eyebrow at him, leaning back in his own chair, though without even half the decadent indulgence Genma could get across in a gesture. There was a reason the brown-haired senbon wielder was one of the rare male ninja chosen for seduction missions._

_"Are you talking about Shizune-san?" Izumo asked in a skeptical tone, "No offence, she may be pretty to look at but she hardly seems like a wildcat in bed."_

_Genma rolled his eyes, "I'm talking about Sakura, as you well know. You know, pink hair, gorgeous eyes, a luscious ass to die for? I've seen you watch her too."_

_Izumo crossed his arms over his chest defensively and looked around in alarm. "Don't let Tsunade hear you talk about her little protégé. I'm not blind, yeah, but I'm not suicidal either."_

_Kotetsu laughed, "Yeah, if Tsunade-sama doesn't crush you into a pulp with those fists of hers if she thought you looked at Sakura-san that way, then the rose-haired princess would herself. I've seen the craters in her favorite training field." He seemed to give an overly-exaggerated shudder._

_Genma groaned, a purely masculine sound, "That's exactly what I'm talking about though! To think, someone so delicate and innocent-looking having such monstrous strength at her disposal…"_

_Raidou joined in, "No, I know what you mean, Genma. It's like, she almost seems like a dainty little civilian at first glance. Breakable, fragile, soft. Like a little flower. But then she brings out that strength and makes craters in the ground and punches clean through walls, and the juxtaposition is incredible. Suddenly she's not as breakable as you thought, and the possibilities are endless…" He trailed off, a dark gleam in his eye making Sakura acutely aware that he was thinking about her in ways she never would have suspected from sweet, poetic Raidou, who always greeted her first at the gate and who was unfailingly polite and well-spoken._

_"Trust you to put it like a bleeding poet," grumbled Izumo, but with no real heat._

_"You don't get it. There's just something about a woman who wields such strength that makes you want to break that iron control of hers. Make her helpless under you in bed. Make all that monstrous power putty in your hands. Now, for our little princess… I'm betting that once you get past those thorns, the temper and that prim and proper act she's got going on, the flower you find is… fucking delicious." Genma exchanged a knowing smirk with Raidou at his own innuendo._

_Kotetsu spoke, "Judging by what I heard from Arekou-san, you're both wrong. He's been saying your little flower princess is a fridge. Ice princess might be a better nickname for you guys to use."_

_Genma scoffed, "That piece of soggy cardboard wouldn't know his way to a woman's pleasure point with a map and detailed instructions. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he plans all of his intimate interactions ahead of time, that's how uptight and stuffy that man is. No, what our Sakura needs is a more…passionate touch." His voice grew husky at the last words. His grin gleamed white around his senbon, as he wiggled it with his tongue and flicked it skillfully to the other corner of his mouth to catch it in place with a flash of straight, even teeth. His lips splitting into a roguish grin around the metal needle, he wiggled his eyebrows to leave no doubt as to his meaning._

_Even though it was only a clone memory, Sakura blushed. Her night with the three Akatsuki had made certain she could vividly imagine what possibilities could lie behind a mouth like that. So lost was she in the display of oral skill, that she jumped with the others when a familiar voice, silky smooth and deceptively light, came from the entrance of the jounin lounge._

_"Oh, is that so?_ Our  _Sakura, was it?" Kakashi purred._

_That smooth, calm tone made Sakura tense, knowing him as she did. She was aware that it was only the calm before the storm. Kakashi only used this voice when he was truly angry, and death and mayhem usually followed this tone. Not necessarily in that order._

_Genma and the others shot up from their seats, standing straight at attention. "Hatake-senpai! We didn't mean—We were just admiring how far your student has grown," rambled Izumo. Kotetsu and Raidou had paled, looking terrified that the Copy-Nin had caught them talking like that about his student._

_"Former student," corrected Kakashi with deceptive mildness, and settled into his own chair, lounging with no less grace than Genma, though his had nothing to do with seduction training and everything to do with being an alpha male. Kakashi entered the room, and men came to attention while women noticed him in an entirely different way. It had been so for as long as Sakura could remember, so by the time she hit adulthood she didn't even notice._

_Now, watching him interact with others after not seeing him for so long, she was starkly reminded of the aura of power that always surrounded him, even when he was slouching and reading one of his dirty books. He wasn't slouching now, and there was something barely-restrained about his aura, like a wolf looking out through flimsy bars._

_"Now go on," Kakashi continued in a bored drawl, "you were saying something about my Sakura-chan needing a…._ passionate touch _, was it?" He hadn't called her Sakura-chan since she'd reached adulthood, much less MY Sakura-chan. And that silky, deep voice- Sakura shivered, though not with fear._

_The possessive note in his words startled Sakura—or perhaps it was just something she'd just been ignoring until this moment, where her fresh eyes couldn't deny it. Sakura certainly knew that while she'd still been in the village, nothing could have broken that teacher-student relationship she'd stubbornly maintained between them, no matter how much he told her to stop calling him sensei. There had been many things she'd been stubbornly blind to back then, clinging to her childhood as if it would hold back the reality of the world._

_Now…there was nothing of her old goofy sensei in the sharp, arrogant lines of the man in front of her, his eyes half-lidded with a bored stillness. The stillness of a predator in wait, as if it had all the time in the world to attack and rip them to shreds._

_Genma, who was one of the closest things Kakashi had to a friend, seemed less perturbed than the others, but even he had a wary note in his voice as he spoke. "Come on Kakashi, you know I wouldn't touch your precious student. Forget Tsunade, YOU wouldn't let any of us live if you really thought we'd disrespect your favorite."_

_Sakura was startled by the words. His favorite? Surely not. For all the attention he paid Sasuke and Naruto, she might as well be a fly on the wall. He'd gotten better as she'd gotten older and grown out of her fangirl stage, but the initial rejection had left a lasting hurt with Sakura. But Kakashi didn't refute the words._

_"You're right, she is my favorite cute little student. Not so cute is what I'll do to you if you cross the line." His voice was pleasant, his words a threat._

_Genma ignored it. "Oh please, just 'cause you won't let yourself act in any way that disrupts that oh-so-sacred sensei-student bond, don't ruin it for the rest of us. She's fucking hot, and no, I'm not gonna try anything cause I know you'd skin me, but I'm not gonna pretend to be blind either."_

_Kakashi's voice sounded lazily amused, but his one visible, half-lidded eye held a dangerous light in it. "Maybe I should let my cute little student know just what sort of thoughts her colleagues have been entertaining about her. I'm sure you'll appreciate her…passion, was it? …when she's showing you all she's learned in ANBU. And with Tsunade. And," his eye darkened, "under me."_

_Genma snorted. "Yeah, except we both know that the sort of things you really wish she learned….under you," and he made the words deeply suggestive, "is nothing so threatening. In fact, I'd love to watch what you've been teaching your 'cute little student' when it's just the two of you. I've always wondered: how is it that you keep your hands off her tight little body when she's punching up craters around you with those slender fists, or wriggling that delicious ass as she concentrates on healing the same damage that she doles out?"_

_Sakura expected Kakashi to get even angrier, punch Genma in the throat, elicit some nasty revenge for the words—but suddenly, it was as if all the fight had gone out of him. He slumped in his chair, his face in his hands._

_"With difficulty, Genma. With great, great difficulty," he groaned out, to Sakura's great shock._

_The others laughed, and Genma slapped the man on the back._

_Sakura's clone was stunned enough by this turn that she leaned closer…and pricked her hand on the thorn of the prickly bush. With a near-silent 'pop' and a cloud of smoke, she disappeared—and the poor potted plant was decimated by a flurry of kunai thrown by some of the village's most dangerous shinobi, as they realized they'd been spied on…}_

Sakura remembered what happened next. On the other side of the village, her original self had gotten the info from her clone of Kakashi's location, and she'd filed away anything prior to that deep into her subconscious, as usual. Or, as she was coming to realize, not her subconscious after all, but Inner.

She'd stridden with purpose into the jounin lounge, cast a curious glance at the shredded plant, and snagged Kakashi, who'd looked almost guilty for some reason at her arrival. She'd assumed he'd been doing something perverted he didn't want her to know about and had ignored it. And if he'd sneaked odd looks in her direction for the next few weeks afterwards, that wasn't difficult to ignore either. Her sensei had always been weird.

Three months later, Danzo had finally taken over, and she'd had no reason to revisit the past memories of her clone.

This knowledge, though…She didn't want to believe it, that her silver-haired, eccentric, lazy sensei had even seen her as a woman, rather than his student—but even in the memory, she'd become aware of him in ways she'd never been before. And that was odd and frightening in itself.

 _I never realized…Why didn't you show me any of this before?_ Asked Sakura with a thread of anger,  _I never even realized any of the other jounin noticed me, much less talked about me like that. And Kakashi…_

 _ **You would never let me,**_ replied Inner sadly.  _ **You were determined to only extract the information from your clones that was immediately relevant to the tasks you set them, and if you'll recall, we've had some distance between us for the past few years. That particular conversation would have been too weird to acknowledge, and made you withdraw from me even more.**_ There was a tinge of old hurt in her voice that made Sakura realize, suddenly, how much she'd rejected Inner, and how much it had hurt her second personality. That she'd not used any silly nicknames just then was proof enough of how deeply it had cut Inner to be so rejected.

 _I'm so sorry, Inner,_ she apologized fervently,  _I was…stupid, and in denial. Can't believe it took the falling of a village to make me embrace you. And after you've helped me so much…_

 _ **Oh, I could never stay angry at you for long, sugarcheeks,**_ Inner replied, and though some hurt was still there, the apology seemed to have smoothed much of it over,  _ **Besides, I understood, most of the time. It's hard to lock away all that emotion and not also reject the being holding it. It made survival possible, and at the time that was our main priority.**_

 _The fact that it was understandable doesn't mean it was acceptable,_ replied Sakura firmly.  _Now that we're away, I'll do better. I'll_ be  _better._

 _ **You'll get no complaints from me on that resolution, sweetness,**_ and Sakura could just feel Inner's cheeky grin.  _ **But anyways, enough of being so serious about this. And besides, I think I have a theory about your super-cool superpowers.**_

 _Oh?_ Sakura herself had been thinking about the revelations from her relative, but there had been too many blanks in her knowledge.

_**Well, remember how granny Pink said that she was surprised you lived through puberty without it showing?** _

Sakura snorted into her drink at the ridiculous nickname for the poised older lady, drawing some weird stares from the other patrons. Her reply was amused.

_Yeah, of course I remember. But then, none of this bloodline business makes any sense. I think I would have known if I had some super-secret legendary bloodline that made me able to parasitically suck chakra and bloodlimit skills from people._

_**True, that. But you also know some of it makes sense. Our…parents, or not-parents, for example. Remember how much better they got as we came out of puberty? Like they could finally allow themselves to love us.**_ Inner's voice was bitter. Unlike Sakura, she'd never had that overwhelming need to be loved by their aloof parents, and had resented them for their distance. When that distance had begun to be bridged upon Sakura reaching adulthood, Inner had been skeptical and mistrustful of the change. Sakura had ignored Inner's reservations, but she'd wondered at the change herself.

 _Yeah, that was strange. Come to think of it, Kakashi got a lot better as we got older too. Remember how he wouldn't even look at me when we were first on the team? I mean, I was still in fangirl mode but still, you'd think he'd care more about his student._ The pain of that particular rejection had smoothed as Kakashi and herself had gotten closer when she became Jounin, but never fully went away.

_**True. Even more to my point. Maybe he even knew about you himself. Either way, by all indications, you were supposed to manifest your weird little superpower at puberty. But you only developed it now, when you and I finally joined. That's when you finally had full access to all your emotions and desires. I think that's the key.** _

_What, you think that my split personality caused the delay?_

_**Think about it. I've never heard of a case like ours, where undesired emotions and thoughts could be so completely sealed away into another personality. And if your bloodline is triggered by emotion and true vulnerability, then it makes sense that it wouldn't activate until you let down those walls between us.** _

_I guess that's logical,_ Sakura said slowly, thinking fast.  _Especially if after triggering it, our weird hunger would be activated too. I don't think I could have hidden that._

 _ **Yeah. Thank Kami for small favors. Now that I think about it, if Danzo found out we had this power…**_ They both shuddered. He'd probably have tried to make her seduce every bloodline-possessing enemy nin out there. And as much as Sakura had loved discovering her sexuality with the three missing nin last week, she didn't want to be forced to use her body in that way. With strangers, people she wasn't even attracted to, just for the sake of power—Sakura was suddenly fiercely grateful she'd not activated her bloodline while in the village.

Though if it was triggered by profound sexual bliss, that probably would have been unlikely. Sasuke had been terrible, the ANBU captain she'd dated had put her to sleep—and most others gave her wide berth with Tsunade's and her teammates' scrutiny on all potential suitors. She was determinedly not thinking of Kakashi's motivations for keeping men away from her.

_I'm definitely grateful it didn't activate sooner. Though with this hunger…I suspect it will only be sated if I have sex again. And I don't want to be a slave to my body like that._

_**Me either, kitten. We've just had our first taste of freedom. I won't have us slave to our own body, not after all that.** _

_So what do we do?_

_**Well…let me try something.** _

Sakura felt Inner in her mind like never before, ruffling through her mind… _ **Ah, there.**_ The hunger, which had begun to ache again, was suddenly so diminished it was barely a tickle in the back of Sakura's mind.

_What did you do?_

_**Just locked it away into a separate part of your mind. Where you usually store clone memories. Obviously, it won't last forever—but it won't turn you into a mindless beast intent on sex, either. I'm starting to realize the downsides of this so-called gift. And why our grandmother was surprised we were still sane….relatively.** _

_Well…At least I have some choice, now. Thanks, Inner. I'll try to figure this out soon._

_**No worries, sugarplum. Now, back to our plan—I think you should consider seeking out the Akatsuki again.** _

_Inner!_ Sakura was outraged,  _This is not the time for your perverted fantasies! They're dangerous S-rank missing nin, and we need to tread carefully!_

Inner scoffed with amusement,  _ **Who said anything about sex? Seems to me you're the perverted one, heh. What I meant was, this is your one chance to seek protection from a powerful group of ninja, who can appreciate and have need of your medical expertise, and who can protect you from Danzo.**_

 _..Oh._ Sakura blushed lightly.

 _ **Yeah, oh.**_ Inner said, amused.  _ **That being said, if we get to sample some of that yumminess for ourselves, all the better.**_

 _Inner!_ Sakura's cheeks were bright red, and she fumed. But she had to admit, Inner had a point. Perhaps she'd realized it herself on some level, because her own instincts had led her here, to a village as close to their reported hideout as could be. And if they truly meant to hurt her…Sakura squared her shoulders. She was a medic, but she was also Tsunade of the Sannin's apprentice, the Copy-Nin's ANBU protégée, and had trained with some of the best ninja in Fire Country. She could escape, if she needed to.

Mind made up, Sakura scoped out the bar. Most of these men were farmers, but someone would surely know about the Akatsuki….ah, there, the bartender. Jumping off her stool, Sakura approached him, her face in a polite smile. The older, sallow-faced man looked at her small stature, big eyes, and pink hair in consternation, as if he couldn't believe something so girly existed, much less had waltzed into his bar. He didn't return her smile, but turned his face towards her to indicate he was listening.

"Hi!" Sakura chirped, amping up her smile, "I was just wondering…would you happen to know where the Akatsuki organization is based?" Being direct never hurt.

The man paled beneath his tanned skin, staring at her, then looked around the bar in alarm. He grabbed her shoulder with a surprisingly strong grip and ushered her away from the patrons near them, some of whom had turned their heads at her words.

"What the hell are you doing, saying that out loud! Do you want to be killed? Cause that's what you'll get, saying that name around here. You don't want to draw their attention, trust me," he said angrily. "Especially…" He trailed off, looking her over again in disapproval. His gaze made his meaning clear: little girls had no business asking around after S-rank criminals.

Sakura's smile became fixed to her face as her eyes turned steely, and she spoke with sugary sweetness, "Actually, that's exactly what I want. And if you know what's good for you," here she placed a deceptively small hand on his wrist, still holding on to her shoulder, "you'll take your hand off me." She squeezed, lightly, and he paled at the pressure. Any harder, and she'd break the fragile bones of his wrist. He released her like she was a hot coal, and rubbed his wrist, staring at her.

"I'll never understand your kind," he muttered with wide eyes, though his voice was subdued. "Someone so cute having such power…fine, if you want to damn yourself, I'll not stand in your way. Maybe you'll survive after all, and learn some common sense. Maybe not, and that's another monster gone."

Sakura wasn't surprised at the attitude—unlike Konoha, which had a fairly integrated shinobi-civilian population, most civilians outside the hidden village had almost never seen a shinobi before. It was common that they were seen as some sort of monsters or demons. And thinking back on some of the skills shinobi had, their killing intent and overpowered jutsu, Sakura could see where civilians would think that. She had no patience to smooth ruffled feathers now, though. If he was afraid of her, he'd give her the information all the quicker.

"Glad to hear you'll cooperate," she purred. "Now, the location?"

"Nobody knows the exact location," the man said gruffly. "But if you stick around for a few days, you'll see one of them around. They're always coming through here, since it's the closest pub nearby aside from Amegakure."

Sakura was surprised, "Why wouldn't they go to Amegakure?"

He shrugged, and looked away. "I don't know, and I'll not be asking them either. It's hard enough keeping them from killing my patrons every time they visit. You so curious, ask them yourself."

Sakura retorted, "maybe I will. Now, do you have a room for me for the next few days?"

The barkeep looked at her, "I do… but it didn't seem like you could afford more than one night, not if that bundle of coins was all you have left."

The pink-haired medic flushed. "That's none of your business. I'll take the one night, and I'll have the rest of the money by tomorrow to continue. Don't worry your pretty little head about it."

With a sneer, he turned away, and came back with a key, dropping it in her palm. "Suits me. But you don't pay, you don't stay. Even if you are a shinobi. The room's upstairs, second on the left."

"Got it," replied Sakura coolly. The man was beginning to get on her nerves with his dismissive manner, even after she'd demonstrated her strength. There was something about most civilian men—and many shinobi for that matter—that would never be able to see a female as a true threat, even if she was a kunoichi and had been learning to kill since she was six. She supposed her girly hair didn't help in that regard, though it still stung a bit to not be feared on sight. She imagined Kisame never had such problems. Or any of the Akatsuki, for that matter.

Sakura went back to the bar, to finish the second bowl and the leftover rice wine she had left over. Now, if she'd been Tsunade, she'd have tried her hand at the gambling table in the corner, where a few men had gathered to test their luck against each other at cards. She knew from…recent experience, however, that her luck was the worst when it came to cards, and she was more likely to lose money than win it.

A movement from the corner of her eye drew her attention. It was a middle-aged, plump woman, pleasant-faced in a maternal, stern sort of way. Sakura wondered what she was doing in a bar such as this, then saw her apron and the flour on her hands, which were beckoning her to come closer. So it was the cook. Sliding from her stool, Sakura came up to the woman.

"I couldn't help but overhear the conversation between you and my husband," the woman said. Sakura's eyebrows climbed. That condescending, unpleasant man was married? "I have to apologize for him, he doesn't do well around shinobi. They bring up bad memories, and heaven knows we've had our share of problems with that organization lately. Nobody killed, yet, but a couple of them don't mix well with drink. The explosions alone have been...trying." The woman's words were complaining, but her eyes shone with humor that showed she wasn't as intimidated by the shinobi organization as her husband.

"Explosions?" Sakura asked. That could only have been Deidara.

"That, and broken furniture, string, wire, and mud all over, strange plants growing out of the floorboards to release full-grown men, wooden body parts left behind, one of our patrons was nearly sacrificed, there's a swamp behind the bar that had never been there before, and my cat has been kidnapped several times now. Their leader doesn't tolerate civilian deaths, but a lot of other things seem like fair game."

The woman's voice was more amused than anything. Sakura felt her respect rise for the woman—and was surprised at the no-civilian-death rule. Something must have changed drastically since the last time she heard of the Akatsuki. Though they'd never gone out of their way to touch civilians, they'd never seemed to care much if accidents happened, either.

"Anyway," the cook's voice drew Sakura out of her thoughts, "if it's money you're needing, we've got some heavy lifting and chores that we could trade for your stay. My husband would normally be the one to offer it, but you must have rattled him. I don't think he ever saw a woman ninja before."

"And you have?" Sakura asked, curiously.

"Aye, I lived in Amegakure up until I was ten, then came to work as kitchen help for an inn in a nearby regular village. But I'll never forget some of those kunoichi. Bright, pretty things, with such strength and destruction in their hands. If you can do even a half of what they could, these chores shan't be a problem for you, dear."

She led Sakura to the backroom and showed her what needed to be done. A few logs of wood to be chopped, the water trough filled, and the biggest problem of all—the spring by the road was blocked by a giant boulder that had rolled down during a landslide in one of the spring rains. The mud had washed away, the boulder hadn't, and the water had slowed to a small trickle that was barely enough to provide water for the settlement.

Sakura smiled briefly at the equivalent of a D-rank mission ahead of her—she hadn't taken any since she was a genin, and it was good to go back to the roots.

She made quick work of chopping the wood, not bothering with an axe: a little chakra-applied strength to her palms, and twenty minutes later the logs were chopped into even pieces of firewood, neatly stacked by the building. The trough was also easily filled, as Sakura performed a simple water jutsu to suck the moisture out of the air and pour clean, drinkable water in by the gallon. The cook had been watching all of this with wide eyes, and a couple more of the patrons had made their way outside to watch the kunoichi work. What was basic academy-level stuff to Sakura seemed like magic to civilians, and their awe humbled her. How much harder must their lives be without chakra? As she finished up with the water, the surly barkeep came out as well, despite himself.

Finally, the boulder was left. With a flex of chakra, Sakura brought strength to her limbs and crouched by it, using another application of chakra to stick the boulder to her hands, as if tree-walking. There was no easy grip otherwise, and she didn't want to get her clothes dirty by hugging it close to her body. She stood, and lifted the boulder, which was nearly twice her full height and twenty times her weight, without breaking a sweat, holding it above her head with two dainty hands. Sakura turned, facing her dumbstruck audience.

"Where do you want it?" She called.

Mutely, the barkeep, who was staring at her in disbelief, pointed across the road, in the dense bush. Showing off a bit, Sakura flexed her arms and her chakra simultaneously, then tossed the boulder like one would a beach ball across the road. With a thundering crash, it landed in the shrubbery and settled into the dent it made with its own weight. Now, even if there was another flood, it wouldn't budge for anything.

Dusting off her hands, Sakura cheerfully weaved her way through the awestruck patrons, who broke their silence as she walked and started chuckling in disbelief. One of them clapped the frozen barkeep on the shoulder. "Cheer up, man. At least she didn't throw that thing on your head, after the way you talked down to her."

The man startled, and seemed to pale at the thought. He made his way back inside the bar, where Sakura had settled, and was sipping the last of her rice wine. Silently, the man came up to her and placed a new bottle of sake by her plate. "On the house," he muttered. Sakura smiled. Seemed he could learn some manners, after all. He shuddered slightly at her sweet smile and made his way back into the kitchen, disappearing for the rest of the night.

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Two thirds of the bottle later, Sakura was relaxed, a little drowsy, and keeping an ear out for gossip about the Akatsuki. When the door closed behind the last of the patrons with nothing useful having come up, Sakura heaved a sigh. Deciding it was time for bed, she slipped off the high stool and turned to the door…only to bump into a wall. On second take, that wall was actually a warmly solid, masculine chest, and equally solid, masculine hands reached up to steady her. She lifted her gaze and saw…orange.

That is, a blinding, Naruto-worthy orange swirly mask, with one dark eye gleaming within that seemed to pierce and assess her in one split second—before she was glomped in a bone-crushing hug.

"Tobi has found her, Tobi has found the pretty kunoichi!"

"Control yourself, Tobi-kun," came another male voice from behind the first. This one was deeper, slightly raspy, with an aristocratic lilt to it. Sakura was released as suddenly as she'd been hugged, gasping for breath, while the grown man with the incongruously childish voice sprang away. He put his hands behind his back in contrition, as children do when they're trying to keep from grabbing something they want very much to have, like a sweet, or a toy. Yet the dark stare that rested heavily upon her didn't seem entirely innocent, for all his youthful mannerisms.

"Tobi is sorry. Tobi was happy to find the pink hair lady. Didn't mean to hurt her."

Sakura shot an incredulous glance at him—was he for real?—before looking around him to commiserate in the absurdity with the owner of the other, much more reasonable-sounding voice. She met black, familiar eyes, and froze. Itachi.

Taking two frantic steps away, her back hit the bar, her pack too far to reach and regardless, no weapon she possessed would likely hold off the murderous ninja in front of her. She cursed herself for forgetting that little detail: the most notorious mass murderer of Konoha was a member of the very organization she was considering joining, the same murderer who had tortured Sasuke, who had tried to kidnap Naruto…who was currently paying no attention whatsoever to her, and was calming the other. Tobi.

"You didn't hurt her, Tobi-kun. But it is impolite to tackle strangers, even if they have pink hair."

Sakura suppressed a hysterical snort. Itachi sounded like the voice of reason, gently chiding, as if telling off a child. From her memory of the body underneath that cloak, there was nothing childlike about the orange-masked shinobi. She inched in the direction of her pack, where her weapons were sealed, and the small movement made Itachi's eyes snap to her, pinning her in place with the intensity of his gaze.

"You've been asking about us." There was no question in that calm voice, no inflection. "Why." Again, not a question. A demand for an answer, if anything. And there was nothing Sakura responded to so poorly as demands.

She cocked a hip, adopting a careless demeanor. "Well, you got here fast." She flicked her hair over her shoulder and inspected her nails, faking disinterest. "Heard you guys need a medic, thought I'd volunteer my services."

"…Volunteer." Again, not a question. Sakura was tempted to call him out on his inflection-less manner of speaking, but she had the feeling that taunting this man would cross the line from bravado into suicidal.

"Yeah," she said lightly, instead, "Got nothing better to do, anyway. Life as a missing-nin is surprisingly boring, aside from the occasional deadly encounter."

Itachi looked at her more closely then. Sakura would have said he squinted, if the elegant man in front of her was capable of such a common thing. "Are you…Haruno Sakura-san? Tsunade of the Sannin's apprentice? My….otouto's teammate?"

 _ **Wow, not one, but three real questions in a row? Give the man a medal,**_  Inner quipped. Sakura shushed her, and instead replied affirmatively.

"Yes, the very same. So you've heard I'm a missing nin now? Didn't realize the bingo books updated that fast…"

The ghost of a smirk graced Itachi's face before slipping away. If not for her obsessed childhood spent discerning Sasuke's inexpressive face, Sakura wouldn't have caught it. "No, not from the bingo books. But I have heard of your…missing nin status." For a split second, his eyes seemed to flicker down and over her body, but Sakura must have imagined it.

The implications took a second to sink in, and then her face burst into flame. "Where…oh. Kisame, Deidara and Hidan told you about me?!" Her voice turned into a squeak at the end, and she had to clear her throat.

Itachi's eyes flashed briefly with dark amusement before settling once more into unreadable onyx pools. "Hn." That was all the affirmation she needed.

Sakura buried her face in her hands, and groaned. She should have anticipated that the three men would talk about her to the others, but it hadn't even crossed her mind. How would she even face them? She could barely face Itachi now, and thought she would die of mortification.

When she brought her hands down, her face met a swirled orange mask inches away, the lone eye within examining her curiously. "Why is the pretty pink lady all red? Tobi wants to learn! But Tobi would be all orange, because orange is Tobi's favorite color. Tobi never becomes orange," he concluded sadly, his eye drooping. The effect was so comical Sakura snorted.

"The pretty pink lady," and oh yes, she liked being called pretty, even if by a child in a man's body, "is red because she's embarrassed," she responded with a laugh.  _ **Good lord, did you just refer to yourself in the third person? Cease that at once! There's not enough room for more crazy in this head.**_ Sakura rolled her eyes at Inner's sarcasm, and continued, "I don't think you can turn orange though, Tobi-kun. You know what, though? I bet you can help me make Kisame and Hidan and Deidara all sorts of different colors. I'm thinking…blood red." Her smile turned bloodthirsty. Those three would pay for talking about her.

Toby's eye turned happy, "Really? Does the pretty lady promise?"

A light cough made Sakura turn back to the Uchiha, who was watching them, now with unconcealed amusement. After a lifetime of watching Sasuke's cold expressions, this look in familiar eyes was jarring.

"Does this mean you are still coming to the organization?" He asked, and his deep voice held a note of warmth in it that sent a pleasant shiver through Sakura.

She suppressed another flush, and answered, "Yes, I suppose so. Though whatever they might have said, it won't happen again. I'm a professional."

Itachi gave her another nearly unnoticeable once-over, just a flicker of his eyes, but merely said, blandly, "Pity."

Sakura gaped, but he had already turned towards the exit.

"Come, Tobi, Haruno-san."

Tobi jumped up and down, and flung his arm around Sakura's shoulder, grabbing her pack with the other hand. "Yay, the pretty pink lady is gonna live with us now! Tobi is so excited! We're gonna have tea parties and sleepovers and cuddles and playtime and it's gonna be so much fun!"

He kept babbling as he pulled her towards the door after Itachi, and into the night. The orange-mask didn't prevent his hot breath from tickling her ear as he leaned down to talk to her, sending goosebumps down Sakura's skin. Nor did his Akatsuki cloak do anything to keep Sakura from feeling his rock-hard, warm muscles draping around her shoulders, and working in his side as he walked close to her.

Sleepovers indeed. What had she gotten herself into?

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**A/N: Whew, finally got her where I want her. What is it about Sakura and getting picked up (literally) at bars?**

**Now, I have to say this- as much as I am a fan of smut, I don't plan to make it mindless and plot-less in this story. And it will all be consensual, even if eventually Sakura will discover some darker aspects to the bedroom.**

**To that end, I intend the bloodline to help make her relationship with the Akatsuki more believable, not less. It will help break some barriers, add some spice. After all, she needs to be powerful enough to be their equal, or else the Akatsuki—a _badass, criminal organization,_ if you've forgotten that bit—will trample all over her.**

**Think of it as evening out the scales a bit.**

**Finally: Yes, I am a huge fan of smut, but with Sakura's character as I perceive her, she would need a lot of mental growth and adjustment before she's really comfortable being in a polyandrous relationship with nine or more men, one night of sexytime notwithstanding. And I look forward to exploring that development just as much as I do to writing the actual sexytime.**

**So hakuna your tatas. The full-on, graphic smut will come soon. And maybe, if you're good, so will Sakura ;)**

**.**

**tl;dr version: everything has its purpose, including the plot building and bloodline.**

**.**

**In the meantime, your reviews, comments, ideas, concerns, constructive criticism, and, of course, (*preens and fans herself*) wild praise, keep me productive with more chapters. So thank you to all my readers, but especially those who take the time to leave some feedback!**

**Cheers!**

 


	13. Infiltration

 

Itachi led them through a winding and, Sakura suspected, needlessly complicated series of paths through densely wooded hills before, at last, they arrived at the Akatsuki base. With a pulse of Itachi's chakra against a small swell of rock, what seemed like another mountain face turned into a wide doorway. The genjutsu that Sakura strained to feel over this entrance was so intricately layered, and so carefully balanced, she could have wandered around the area for weeks, over this very spot, and never sensed the doorway. She was suddenly very glad she'd asked the locals instead of just trying to seek the base out on her own.

The Uchiha entered first, and then Sakura, shadowed by Tobi, whose presence behind her seemed, in that moment, as threatening as it was reassuring. For a minute, it was entirely dark: then, a series of pale yellow lights flickered to life along the walls in front of them, apparently motion-activated. There were ink symbols surrounding the bases of the lights: fuuinjutsu. Jiraya would have killed for something so sophisticated.

The entire base seemed to be a series of wide corridors and closed doors, a labyrinth of enormous proportions. Sakura wondered who had built it, for it seemed too huge and sprawling for a single organization to have created, and the air seemed ancient and untouched in some of the darker corridors they walked through. Sometimes they passed windows, and she could catch glimpses of the starry sky blotted out by the inky-black outlines of trees and mountain range.

At last they came upon a set of double-doors, and Itachi knocked thrice, softly. He must have gotten some signal back that Sakura hadn't sensed, for after a second's pause he opened the door and pushed her inside, entering after her with a softly murmured, "Pein-Sama".

Startled by his nudge, Sakura nearly stumbled as she came into the room. She got the glimpse of an austere, polished room with cabinets full of scrolls and books covering the walls, a dark green and deep wood-brown color scheme, and a wide, sturdy wooden desk with heaps of papers, scrolls, and a map of the Elemental nations. It almost reminded her of the Hokage's desk back in Konoha.

All these observations took a fraction of a second before her eyes were drawn inexorably to the powerful aura of the man sitting behind the desk.

His hair was the bright, brilliant orange of a sunset, standing up in gravity-defying spikes. They almost reminded her of Naruto's, but seemed just a bit softer, more a result of an uneven haircut than coarse strands. The bold look was compounded by the stunning number of facial piercings Sakura could see: three pairs going down along his nose, another pair dimpling the skin below his mouth, and countless metal rings and bars in the cartilage of his ears. But the attention-grabbing hair color and jewelry paled in comparison to his eyes.

Once Sakura glanced into them, she was caught. The solid lavender of his eyes drew her in and made her drown in their rings, like ripples in a deep, still pond. Those eyes were both incredibly alien and oddly familiar, and Sakura had the strangest sense of déjà vu, as if she had met these eyes before in a dream, or perhaps had always known that she would meet them.

Then he spoke, and the spell was broken.

"So this is the child who has been asking about my organization." His words were steady and measured, his voice threaded with authority. Though he looked no more than a decade older than Sakura, that voice told a different story. It was a jarring contrast from his flamboyant appearance, and made Sakura unconsciously draw back her shoulders at attention. "I must admit, from your reputation I expected you to be…taller."

At the words, Sakura finally broke her eyes away from his mesmerizing gaze, and affected a light smirk.

"It disappoints me too, sometimes. More often, it makes people underestimate me. Useful, for a ninja."

His mouth twitched as if suppressing amusement at her audacity to threaten him, however subtly.

"So I have heard, from reports of your…exploits in Rain country. Rest assured, my men won't be making that mistake again." His tone was mild, but the words made the tips of Sakura's ear flush pink before she forced down the blush. She wouldn't be embarrassed about one of the most intensely pleasurable encounters of her life. Besides, it hadn't been her fault the men had taken so long to realize she was a ninja.

"I'd hope not," she said placidly instead. "And considering the fact that you're trying to recruit me, I'd assume you're not planning on underestimating me anyway."

"Indeed." His gaze was calculating, shrewd. "Straight to business, then. How much do you know of our organization?"

Sakura hesitated. "In truth, not much. I know that up until a year or two ago, you were actively hunting jinchuuriki, your target the tailed beasts inside them. According to Konoha intelligence—at least, that I had clearance for—your organization also takes on a lot of high-level missions for low costs, putting the other villages out of business. Since you have stopped hunting the tailed beasts for an unknown reason, you've stopped antagonizing the nearby villages, and laid pretty low. There's lots of rumors about what nefarious plots the Akatsuki have been up to, but to be honest, with the turmoil we've had in Konoha it's been hard to pay attention to them."

The leader of the Akatsuki seemed unsurprised, but narrowed his eyes at her last words.

"Ah, yes. It appears we have a common enemy, then, Haruno Sakura." She jolted at the use of her name, which she had not given him. Then again, he probably knew everything about her from her mission history to the color of her underwear. One did not become the leader of the most dangerous criminal organization in the shinobi nations without being thorough with their information gathering.

He continued, "Consider this a bonus, then, to joining us: aside from protection from your old village and a generous pay, you will be working towards actively dismantling Shimura Danzo from power."

Sakura didn't gape, but only just. "What concern could you have with Danzo? From what I heard, both your and his methods are pretty shady, so if anything I would have thought you'd be best friends."

Her attempt at flippancy only made his eyes darken dangerously, a thunderous expression crossing his face. "Do not presume to know my motivations, or to compare me to that—man." He visibly gathered himself. Calmly, but for the restrained anger still simmering in the depths of his odd eyes, he continued, "Suffice it to say that he has been my enemy longer than you have been alive. I would do much to make him pay for his crimes."

Sakura believed him.

"Well, I can't say no to a chance to tear that bastard down. But what exactly do you expect me to do for you? Because I draw the line at attacking innocent people or chasing jinchuuriki. Naruto is my best friend, and Gaara is a friend too—he barely got away last time."

His voice was amused. "Weren't you the one who said that by all reports, we have abandoned that plan? Do not fear, I would not send you after your own friends and former comrades. I have found that it is disruptive to the efficacy of missions. Our organization is not one rooted in mindless violence: indeed, all that we do is in the ultimate pursuit of peace."

Sakura barely suppressed a snort. "Peace, really, by being a criminal organization? I'll admit you guys have been quiet the last couple of years, but most of the people you employ didn't win their S-rank missing nin status by weeding gardens and helping old ladies cross the road."

He leveled an unimpressed stare at her sarcasm. "Believe what you will," he said neutrally. "You will see it yourself, in time. I have not the time to explain our plans to one who has not yet proven herself."

Sakura grew wary of this. "Prove myself?" She challenged. "I thought I already did that when I knocked three of your members flat on their asses, or when I got into the bingo books for my medical expertise and strength techniques."

"The skills in bingo books can be faked or exaggerated, and the instance you speak of may well have been a fluke. It is a rite of passage that all who would join this organization have gone through."

"I thought you needed me for my medical expertise, rather than for my fighting?" Sakura asked warily.

"A true member of our organization cannot have subpar fighting skills no matter their medical prowess. The former, we will test immediately. Should you survive, you will have many chances to demonstrate the latter. Frankly, any healing skill would be better than those awful strings of Kakuzu's," he muttered the last bit under his breath.

Apparently, that was that. He stood, and led the way out of the room, Sakura following only because Itachi and Tobi flanked her on either side and it would be futile to try to run off. A couple turns in the labyrinthe corridors later, and they arrived at what seemed to be a stone training yard, made from a natural underground cavern, with a rocky outline indicating a border.

Though nervous, the pink-haired kunoichi hid her trepidation well while she tried to formulate a plan. It appeared they would test her battle skills: the problem with that was in the location. With them being underground, in a stone cavern, she couldn't use her crater-causing strength technique for fear of bringing the ceiling down on them. This left taijutsu, in which she knew she was hopelessly outmatched against larger, more experienced opponents, what little ninjutsu she knew- again, probably laughable in comparison to whoever these S-rank ninja had. Genjutsu was useless against Itachi's Sharingan, and wasn't really her specialty anyway.

That left trickery, and medical expertise. She'd been working on an idea, inspired by the traitor Kabuto of all people, but hadn't really tried it yet. If she could only get close enough…

She was brought out of her furious planning when they reached the edge of the training ground, and the leader—Pein, if Sakura remembered Itachi's greeting correctly—sent her in with a gesture.

Then he said, "Itachi." Sakura nodded: she'd expected the missing-nin from Konoha to face her. "You judge. Tobi—are you ready?" She gaped, now, openly. That…childlike ninja, he would be her test?

As he smoothly stepped into the circle, however, she remembered the look in his eye that knew too much, the darkness she'd glimpsed in him already tonight. He might act like a child, but Sakura knew that he could not have made it into the organization without some serious skills. She resolved to take him seriously, and decided to treat him as someone as dangerous as Itachi. One could never be too cautious.

Outside the large circle, Pein and Itachi watched as Sakura lay down her pack, took out a few extra kunai, and readied herself. Tobi stood across from her, seemingly harmless, his head cocked innocently to the side.

"Ne, will Tobi get ice cream if he does good in the fight? The last time, the mean shinobi went to sleep from the fight, and Tobi didn't get any ice cream at all," he pouted. Sakura felt a cold shiver of apprehension between her shoulder blades at his words. Now, facing against him, the childishness was hardly comforting, especially if he had indeed put her predecessor 'to sleep.'

Pein didn't even blink. "Yes, Tobi, if you keep from killing Sakura-san, you can have ice cream. The rules of this battle: fight until incapacitation, death, or forfeit. No earth or gravity-affecting jutsu, nothing to destroy any part of the base. Stay within the circle" A brief pause. "You may begin."

Sakura, unprepared, barely had time to leap out of the way before Tobi's foot made a small crater where she had been. No chakra, just strength. Shit.

Without hesitating, he followed her, engaging her in a furious taijutsu match that put her on the defensive and threatened to split her forearms with the force of the blows she was blocking.

She caught a glimpse of surprise in his eye as she blocked most of the hits and even got a couple of her own punches in. Gai-sensei, having taken an unusual interest in her development for the last year, had made sure that blocking and weaving between the punches of an opponent came as naturally to her as breathing. Over the course of learning it, she'd been one big walking bruise. He'd worked mostly on her defensive rather offensive skills—considering her stature, it made sense—so Sakura had gotten used to holding her own in taijutsu long enough to unleash her chakra strength against them.

As she focused fully on the fight, she started to augment her muscles with chakra, blocking the blows more easily now. An unexpected ankle swipe threw her weight backwards, and she landed hard on her back. Sakura didn't hesitate and used her palms to bounce back up over her shoulder, coming up in time to receive another punch to the solar plexus.

The strength of it threw the breath from her lungs and made her want to gasp desperately for air—she ignored the need and instead got up close to Tobi, who had left his guard open a sliver from that punch. It was enough. Sakura extended the chakra from her strength augmentation in her left hand and moved to punch him in the shoulder. Before her hand could make contact with skin, he batted it away, following up with a kick to her stomach that threw her back several feet.

This time, she indulged her impulse to draw breath and sucked in greedy gasps of air, checking her ribs for fractures. There was only a small, non-threatening one, but her torso would be a mass of bruises come morning. If she lived that long.

Tobi made to come towards her, but stumbled. Sakura felt a thrill of success: the medical chakra that she had flared outwards with her punch extended farther than her physical reach. She had been aiming for a tenketsu point in the shoulder: while she couldn't see them as the Hyuuga could, anyone with sufficient knowledge of anatomy could guess, nine times out of ten, where they lay. Now, Tobi's right arm would be useless for chakra-molding, and his entire right side was probably feeling pretty numb.

He looked at her, a couple feet away, his head cocked in the manner of a child. "That wasn't very nice, miss," he said. Sakura felt a chill of foreboding go down her spine. "Tobi has to punish Sakura-chan now, even though Tobi really likes her." His high-pitched, sad tone was incongruous with the dangerous gleam in his eye, and Sakura decided to trust the latter. She scrambled back, just as he raised his left hand and,  _with a one-handed seal_ , sent a fireball in her direction. Sakura felt the tremendous heat of it approaching, the glare of it threatening to blind her in the dim light of the cavern.

When the fireball was gone, Tobi was none too pleased to see her on the opposite side of the clearing, with a scorched rock sitting right where she'd been. Without waiting for him to make a move, the pink-haired kunoichi gathered her chakra and leaped high into the air, all the way up to the rough stone ceiling. There, she attached herself to the rock by first her hands, then her feet, standing upside down in the cavern. Still within the circle, so technically within the rules of engagement.

Sakura sent a group of kunai and senbon at Tobi, who batted them aside in annoyance, then jumped to the side as one of them exploded. Then—she leaped, face down, straight at him. He prepared to dart out of the way—and found that his feet were held down by hands that had emerged from the ground, reinforced by chakra. It only held him for a split second—enough for Sakura. Still leaping face-down, refusing to flip and land on her feet, she suddenly slowed, right in front of his face. Lightning-fast, she punched her fist out, then another: the first brought the ugly crack of bone as it shattered his clavicle, the other he avoided, and the chakra pulse met open air. It didn't matter though, because impossibly, she was bouncing, back up to the ceiling, as if plucked up by her feet.

Yet that's exactly what had happened: the wire attached to her ankles was reinforced with an elastic string of chakra, which softened her fall and then bungee-bounced her back up, to where it attached to the ceiling with a deeply embedded kunai. A practical application to the result of a bored afternoon waiting for Kakashi one day, with Naruto and Sasuke.

Though probably in excruciating pain, Tobi could still apparently move his arm: just as she landed, he sent a flurry of senbon right after her. Most missed, but two imbedded themselves painfully in her left shoulder. She pulled them out immediately, but right away felt the numbness spreading outwards: they'd been poisoned. Some sort of paralytic, she thought, and fast-acting, if the way the numbness spread was any indication. Fortunately, large muscles were slower to succumb and needed less finesse anyways. It would be a few minutes before it reached her fingers and she was really in trouble: but regardless, she needed to finish this quickly.

With a flex of will, her clone from underground—the one that she had created in the blinding glare of the fireball right before kawarimi-ing away—leaped up to join Tobi on the ground. With a chakra-enhanced punch, it sent him flying across the clearing, but he stood up easily, as if it had been a mere love-tap, his mask slightly askew. As he fixed it, Sakura leapt down to join her clone.

Together, they charged at him. Sakura made sure to keep the chakra split evenly between them, and a pulse of chakra application gave the other clone the appearance of the same exact scratches, bruises, and senbon holes as she had herself. She pretended to be the clone, compensating carefully for the numbness that was beginning to reach her elbow, and ran slightly behind the real clone, holding a kunai in each hand as a distraction and forming medical chakra alongside them. When the time would come, she'd simply rip the tendons in Tobi's hands so he couldn't form handseals, and the win would be hers. She'd learned to do this in conjunction with Naruto and Sasuke, who would distract the opponent with a big, flashy jutsu and leave her to do the more subtle work of incapacitating them.

Meanwhile, her clone made her own handsigns—and the cavern was suddenly resonating with the sound of a thousand tiny birds…

Sakura heard an anguished roar, then realized it came from Tobi, who's eye was full of blind rage. There was nothing present, or sane in that eye: he was looking through her, as if seeing something else. He narrowed in on the Chidori in her hand, Kakashi having finally given in and taught it to her last year, and the look in his eye was mad, fiercely loathing. She'd never had a look of such hate directed at her before.

Sakura faltered, slightly—and he was coming at her, moving twice as fast as he had the entire spar, and she realized he'd just been playing with her, testing her skill while delaying his own reactions, humoring her…

The only thing that saved her was her small deception, presenting her clone as the original. Sakura found herself batted away, almost as an afterthought, the force enough to break several ribs and send her flying through the air. She saw, in her flight, his hands coming up, almost faster than she could follow, digging into the clone's neck and torso until he literally tore it apart, and felt the ghost of its painful death as the clone popped and its memories came rushing into her.

She flew until she hit the wall of the cavern, far out of the circle, and slid limply down like a rag doll. It was hard to breathe, and the darkness was threatening to close in.

 _ **Oh no you don't—if you pass out now, you're not getting out of this alive**_ , said the voice she least wanted to hear in the moment. Sakura felt tired, her arms felt like lead- the paralytic taking effect, making movement impossible—and all she really wanted to do was sleep.

_**Wake up, wake up, baka! You really want to die now, when you're so close to your goals? When you still have so much to figure out? Focus, dammit!** _

Sakura groaned, and obliged by grudgingly opening her eyes. It took more effort than lifting up a boulder with no chakra, and her willpower nearly died just at that. Then she met the dark gaze of Itachi, who was crouched before her. His lips were moving, but her ears rang too much to make it out. Concussion.

The word sent some alarm through her, and she rallied another effort to focus. Almost by reflex, she generated passive medical chakra and circulated it through her body, cataloguing the damage.

Bruising and light bleeding in the back of her skull, threatening to hemorrhage into her brain: three broken ribs, one poking dangerously against a lung: to be moved the wrong way would puncture it. Seven fractures, four in her ribs, one in her cheekbone, one on each ulna and another in her right shin. And the paralytic that made her entire left hand numb and motionless was creeping too close to her heart, threatening to stop the muscle entirely.

Cursing internally, Sakura focused first on the bleeding in her brain. With bated breath, she very carefully molded chakra in her still-functioning right hand and slowly brought it to the back of her head. Any healing of the brain area was extremely delicate and dangerous: attempting it on yourself was only to be a last resort. Sakura had no other choices in this criminal den, however, and gently pushed the chakra into her own head. She mended the tear, carefully drained the blood, and soothed the abused brain tissue as much as she could before drawing her hand away. Already, she felt better, and knew that the danger of concussion had passed.

Sakura could also hear the conversation in front of her, as she brought the healing hand to her left side and started to slowly draw out the poison. Without water nearby, the process was slower and more painful, and involved both sweating it out and stimulating her metabolism to process the compound at a faster speed.

"Tobi didn't mean to, Tobi doesn't know what happened!" The childish wail was even higher-pitched with the unhappiness pouring from it. Worse, it sounded sincere, as if it was a different Tobi who had smacked her effortlessly into the wall like a rag dog, and tore apart her clone with his bare hands.

"Whatever you might have intended, you have just lost us a valuable asset," Pein's voice was stern, "how is she meant to draw out your poison if she has a concussion?"

"It is surprising that she survived the impact against the wall at all," added Itachi. Beneath his clinical detachment, Sakura could hear notes of…anger? Distress? No, she must be imagining it. "She is dying, though. Her pupils are blown wide, and if the internal bleeding doesn't kill her, your paralytic will. How ironic that she was to be our medic, yet that is exactly what she needs most right now."

Okay, definitely imagined it—there was that cold-hearted bastard she'd expected.

Finishing up with the most life-threatening of the poison, though her left arm was still pretty stiff, Sakura slowly moved her hand to her ribcage, testing the broken ribs. Only one of them needed to be shifted much, fortunately, but it was also the one most dangerous, threatening to pierce her lung if she wasn't careful. With a light grimace, Sakura extended a chakra scalpel through her own skin, hooked it around the rib, and delicately maneuvered it into place. It hurt, but she bore it with the grim resolve of one who'd performed the same thing many times before. The bone resisted at first, then snapped into place. Clean break, fortunately, so it aligned back easily.

Sakura then began to knot the tissue together, slowly but surely. Bones took the longest to heal, but also required the least attention. As she healed herself, she turned her eyes to the three standing in the cavern, a dozen feet away. None of them were facing her save Tobi, and his teary eye was focused entirely on the men in front of him.

"But Tobi didn't mean to! The pretty kunoichi can't die! She promised to play with me!"

A scoff, from Itachi. "I'm sure she's grateful for having escaped that burden, even through death."

Tobi's demeanor became even more devastated, if that was possible. There were real tears in his voice now. "Tobi killed Sakura-chan? Tobi is a bad boy?!" He sounded lost and desperately unhappy like only small children can, as if the world was ending: but also desperately hopeful for someone to come and save them, tell them it was alright and there were no monsters under the bed. Despite herself, Sakura felt herself soften.

She finished up the last of the life-threatening injuries, and cleared her throat lightly. Pein and Itachi spun around immediately, their expressions gaping briefly in surprise before returning to blank masks, Pein's tinted with calculation. Tobi, on the other hand, stared at her with one eye full of wonder, sheer joy replacing the unhappiness with the blink of an eye. "Sakura-chan!" he cheered, and bounded towards her. She had barely a second to brace herself before he was crushing her in a one-armed embrace, making her barely-healed, battered body groan in protest.

He drew back, more gently, and beamed at her. "Tobi knew Sakura-chan was alive! 'Tachi-nii and Pein-sama were just lying to Tobi, like they always do," he concluded with a brief, sad sigh, before perking up again. His mood swings were like those of a toddler on a sugar high. "Now Sakura-chan can play with Tobi! And Tobi can braid her hair, and show her the super-secret lair, and cuddle, and build a fort, and ooh, eat ice cream!"

He turned an accusing eye to Pein, who was still scrutinizing Sakura with a blank face. "You promised, if Tobi doesn't kill the pretty pink lady, Tobi gets ice cream! Pretty kunoichi is alive, so Tobi wants his ice cream!"

There was a twitch, something like irritation, at the corner of Pein's eyebrow and in the crease of his mouth, before he forced his face smooth again. "Be quiet. You'll get your ice cream tonight." At the words, Tobi settled down immediately and snuggled closer to Sakura. Oddly, he didn't touch any of her bruises, which spoke of uncanny perception and consideration she'd not thought him capable of. But he was more comfortable than the stone wall, so she was content to lay against his side as she faced Pein and Itachi.

"So…I'm alive," she rasped, her lungs still not recovered fully. "Does this mean I pass?"

Pein's gaze raked over her critically, and then he sighed. "Yes, I suppose so. It would have been to much to expect you to beat a senior member of our organization, and frankly you lasted longer than I expected you to." Sakura's brows rose. A senior member of the organization? Tobi? But he continued.

"And you did demonstrate your medical expertise tonight after all, quite adequately. I didn't know it was possible to heal your own head injuries. And also," and here he grinned suddenly, an unexpectedly boyish look that lit up his features like a ray of sunlight, "Nice move with the ninja wire. I forget, sometimes, that the simplest solutions used in unexpected ways are better than any special technique."

Sakura stared up at him. Clearing her throat against her suddenly fast-beating heart, she said, "Thanks. It was a game my teammates and I came up with once. I honestly didn't really expect it to work, until it did," she confessed with a light flush.

He looked over her, and there was something warm and approving in his gaze that hadn't been there before she had passed his tests. He reached into his cloak and pulled something out, then tossed it to her. It was a ring, heavy with a green stone, similar to those that she now saw Pein and Itachi wore.

"Welcome to the Akatsuki, Sakura. I imagine it will be…rewarding working with you. Now, Tobi will show you to your room and around the base, as I'm sure you want to rest, heal, and eat. In the morning, come to my office. There are several projects I have in mind for you, and it is best we begin immediately." He nodded to Tobi, who got up and, offering a hand to Sakura, pulled her up and into his side. Held like that, dwarfed by his unexpectedly strong frame, she felt like more a child than he was.

"Come, Itachi," said Pein, and the two walked out first. Tobi grinned down at Sakura—or at least, his eye did, through the mask.

"Come, Sakura-chan!" He mimicked Pein's deep, steady voice with surprising accuracy, then giggled and led her towards the corridor, keeping an arm close around her.

After another dizzying series of turns and steps that Sakura gave up keeping track of, they arrived at a large, comfortable living room. Or rather, the Akatsuki lair version of such: it was a large hall, with a fireplace, of all things, in one wall, couches and sofas scattered in random patterns around rugs and throws on the stone floor, and a giant dining table in the corner across from the fireplace, surrounded by no less than a dozen chairs. The room was currently empty.

Tobi didn't pause in this den—for that was the closest word Sakura could come up with for the room—and sped through it via another doorway into a large kitchen. It was hard to think of a criminal organization as being so domestic as to have a kitchen, complete with giant stove, spices, and cabinets full of food, but Sakura supposed that even S-rank ninja needed to eat. In between the murder and the mayhem, of course.

Tobi walked over to the icebox to pull out a big carton of ice cream—and as Sakura saw the flinch in his frame as he leaned down, she realized something.

"Tobi, you're still hurt!" How could she have forgotten the ugly cracking sound as his clavicle shattered beneath her fist? She noticed now that he'd been careful to only touch her with his good side, and that his other arm had hung limply by his side the whole time. He looked sheepish.

"Tobi is okay! It will heal itself like it always does."

Sakura was horrified. "No, it will not!" Gesturing at a chair, she commanded, "Sit!"

He obliged, and Sakura had the feeling that if his legs hadn't been too long, he'd have been swinging them beneath him.

She came up to him and had to stand between his legs to reach his shoulder. Running a hand green with medical chakra through his bone, she sighed in relief. The bone was in three pieces, but fortunately no fragments had torn loose. A relatively easy fix.

She set to work, numbing the area and briskly maneuvering chakra scalpels to bring his bones into alignment. Tobi didn't seem to feel anything, kept up a steady stream of chatter, independent of Sakura's participation as she healed him.

"And then Tobi said, 'if mean Hidan-chan won't give back Tobi's cloak then Tobi is going to kill him'—Tobi said that, Tobi did!—and Hidan-chan's face got really purple like his eyes and he said a lot of words Tobi didn't understand but 'Tachi-nii said were—" he looked around furtively and leaned in, " _bad words_!" He giggled guiltily to himself. "And then Tobi said that Hidan-chan should go into time-out because that's what bad boys who say bad words have to do, and Hidan-chan got  _even more purple_  and tried to kill Tobi with his pointy stick! Hidan-chan always tries to kill everyone, all the time, but 'specially Tobi," he admitted sadly.

"'Tachi-nii says that Hidan-chan needs more than time-out because his ps-si-psychosological issues"—he seemed awfully proud of the mangled term—"are too severe. Then, Hidan-chan tried to kill  _Itachi-nii,_ but Itachi-nii made his eyes go all red and then Hidan-chan stopped and started screaming and even though he has a nice voice Tobi didn't think Hidan-chan should wake up everyone, so Tobi covered his mouth with a pillow and then Hidan-chan started getting all  _blue—_ and pretty Sakura-chan said that she would show Tobi how to turn everyone all sorts of different colors, and is that what Sakura-chan meant?" He said all this in one go, without drawing breath, and focused his intense one-eyed stare at her at the end of his inquiry.

Sakura, who was trying not to laugh at his monologue as she set and healed his bones, blinked up at him before the question registered.

"What—oh, yeah, Tobi-kun," she replied with a bit of mischief. "We can turn them any color you like. Especially red," and her smile turned bloodthirsty. She didn't mind so much the fact that they'd talked about the experience as that she was now in an awkward situation with the rest of the Akatsuki because of them. Sakura wasn't above holding a petty grudge. She wouldn't hurt them. Much.

Murderous plans in place, she cheerfully finished off mending his bones and stepped back, grabbing the carton of ice cream from his hands. "Now, what do you say we take care of this ice cream?"

"Yay!" Tobi cheered, unaware of her light scheming.

"Tobi gets all the ice cream, because Tobi is a good boy! Tobi didn't kill the pretty kunoichi, because Tobi is a good boy!" he sang, to an off-beat rhythm, and to no tune that Sakura could follow. She watched him indulgently as he grabbed two spoons, handing one to her, and plopped down in the seat next to hers as she opened the carton. Tobi waited until Sakura scooped out a spoonful and brought it to her mouth, then lunged at the ice cream with unparalleled enthusiasm.

Sakura watched him as he ate with gusto, smacking his mouth around it and making little noises of appreciation, while taking her time with her own. Truthfully, she wanted to enjoy it, savor it, as she'd not had the opportunity for such luxuries while on the run.

Idly, while she ate, she ran a green glowing hand across her torso and healed up the worst of the bruises, then set to work on the fractures. For someone who pulled multiple patients out of critical condition in the course of one night at the hospital, these injuries were hardly a challenge. Fifteen minutes later, aside from some lingering numbness in her left side, and a light ache in her ribs, she was as good as new.

Tobi slowed down as he practically single-handedly finished half of the carton, and his appreciative sounds as he ate were starting to draw Sakura's attention more than the ice cream. He tilted his mask up with every spoonful, enough to get the ice cream in his mouth and for Sakura to get glimpses of a dimple and full lips closing around the spoon. As his pink tongue darted out to lick some melting cream from his finger, Sakura's spoon missed her mouth and ice cream smeared along her cheek.

Flushing in embarrassment, she raised her hand to wipe it away with her fingers, then looked around for a napkin. No such luck, and she brought her hand to her mouth, intending to lick it off.

Her wrist was suddenly caught in an iron grip. Tobi stared at her with an uncharacteristically direct gaze as he slowly tilted up his mask and drew her hand to him.

Sakura watched, frozen in horrified fascination, as he brought her hand up to his lips and sucked her fingers into his mouth. A skilled tongue swept across her skin, making sure to get every drop of the melted cream, and sending an arrow of heat straight to her core. Helplessly, she felt him suck on her fingers on last time, taking them out with a light 'pop' that was almost obscene.

Then Tobi pushed the mask back down and beamed at her with one eye, breaking the tension abruptly.

"Yummy!"

The return of the childish voice broke the spell like a bucket of cold water down her spine. Sakura drew back suddenly, horrified that she could think this way of someone who was so innocent.  _Get a hold of yourself,_  she admonished herself harshly,  _He's just a kid, he doesn't realize what he's doing, so stop reading into it. And you're not gonna act on it, you big pervert!_

With a nervous laugh, she pulled her wrist out of his hand. He briefly resisted, then, with a brush of his thumb against her pulse that sent another inappropriate jolt of heat through her, he let go. She busied herself eating ice cream, careful not to miss her mouth again, and avoiding his gaze.

"The pretty kunoichi is red again!" His voice was too close to her, and Sakura turned to find his mask inches away from her face. "Tobi likes red a lot, but orange is still his favorite!" Then he tilted his head. Something dark and devious flitted through his eye before it was gone, replaced once more by a mask of innocence.

"Tobi likes pink a lot too," he said slyly. "And Sakura-chan's hair is the prettiest! It looks soft, too!" As if to prove his point, he snuggled into Sakura's neck and shoulder, like a great big kitten. His spiky black hair tickled Sakura's cheek, and his arm sneaked around her frame in a half-hug.

Still not quite recovered from him sucking on her fingers, Sakura gave a light laugh. "Thank you, Tobi-kun. We really need to talk about personal space, though, especially with near-strangers."

He made no attempt to move away, and instead just buried deeper into Sakura's side, hot breath against the side of her neck as he spoke. "But Tobi likes the pretty kunoichi! And we're not strangers anymore, silly! Tobi thought we were friends, and friends give each other hugs, right?"

His voice was a bit too sly for his words, and Sakura realized he had slid up his mask a bit when she felt lips grazing against her neck. The unexpected sensation of soft, warm skin against her own sent another jolt of heat through her core. This time, her hunger also stirred from where Inner had locked it away, like a great big cat rolling over and stretching its claws within her. It seemed to perk up even more at his masculine scent, earthy and spicy, surrounding her, and his very much adult, hard-packed muscles pressed against her side. She drew in a shuddered breath, gently moving to push him back.

"Tobi is really glad Sakura-chan joined the Akatsuki," he said then in such a sweet and sincere tone that Sakura melted. Her resolve to move him away faltered.

What a cute and innocent shinobi. What the hell was he doing in the Akatsuki? …Oh, right. He was incredibly skilled and went a bit mad on the battlefield. Oh well. She couldn't begrudge someone else a bit of craziness when she herself had an entire extra person in her mind.

"Thanks, Tobi-kun," she hugged him back, and firmly pushed the hunger away. "I'm glad I'm here too. If only everyone was as nice as you."

"Yes, Tobi can be very nice indeed," He murmured, and his voice was suddenly not quite so childish or high pitched. The last words were said right into the shell of her ear, his hot breath making shivers race down her spine and his lips barely brushing the soft skin of her earlobe.

Sakura felt hot, flushed, trapped in his half-embrace by indecision and the unexpectedness of it. The innocent, childish façade had been stripped away to reveal someone dangerous and knowing, slipping right under her defenses to get her where he wanted her.

"T-Tobi?" she breathed out uncertainly.

A low, dark chuckle reverberated into her ear and straight down to her center. The laugh was almost tangible, rolling over her skin, doing interesting things in entirely inappropriate places.

"Tobi isn't here right now," the stranger murmured, running the tip of his nose against her ear as Sakura stiffened, and then biting down softly on the shell, almost in reprimand. "But I don't think he'd be to your tastes anyways, not for this kind of …fun." His hand, suddenly full of a deliberate intent it had lacked before, trailed down against her arm, raising goosebumps in its wake, before settling firmly, possessively around the curve of her hip. His fingers brushed against the thin strip of skin between her waistband and shirt, and Sakura felt scalded by the skin-on-skin contact.

He felt her shudder, and his lips curved into a smile against her ear before he rewarded her physical reaction with a small kiss on the soft skin beneath her earlobe. Followed by a sharp, firm bite. Sakura squirmed and gasped at the pain: then he let go, and the pain-pressure turned into a languid heat spreading through her body. He licked a lazy stripe against the sensitive skin, soothing it with his tongue like a cat.

Sakura reeled from the unexpected waves of fire licking out from her core, making the hunger purr in anticipation deep within her, threatening to crest over her like a wave and take her sanity and self-control with it. Who was this stranger, who's face and name were mysteries to her, who had so abruptly turned her body against her? It took far more effort than it should have to hold still and think, and not fling herself into his tempting embrace.

This man…if he was truly not Tobi but someone else—another version of her Inner, perhaps, that had the power to take over?—then she knew nothing about him. And letting him close now was foolishly dangerous. Where Tobi was a submissive, childlike personality, this guy had dominance rolling off him in waves. He had the aura of one who could roll her body and mind and leave nothing but embers in his wake.

While she'd been trying to gather her thoughts, the masked man took advantage of her inattention and brought his other hand to rest on her knee, his calloused palm scalding through the thin fabric of her pants. He trailed his fingers lightly along her inner thigh, and then the underside of her knee, where he kneaded firmly. She could feel phantom echoes in her core, already able to imagine those firm, skillful hands on her dripping center, pushing, stroking, teasing. None of his actual touches were far out of the bounds of propriety; but at the same time they felt more intimate than almost anything she'd ever felt.

"Say yes, little kunoichi. It's been a long time since I've tasted one as sweet as you. If you'd let me, I would show you things you haven't even dreamed of, take you to heights of ecstasy that would have you screaming in pleasure and begging me to stop, and to keep going." His words were arrogant, his tone knowing, a low cadence that had none of the high-pitched innocence of Tobi. There was something a bit familiar about the accent, but not in any way Sakura could place: it was too formal, a slightly archaic choice of words and pronunciation that left her puzzled.

She tried to hold on to the thought in an effort to ignore the ripples of burning need his touch was sending through her body, but found she could not. Not when his hand drifted another inch inward, taking her silence as lack of protest, and she flashed her hand down, trapping his in place. The gesture pressed his palm more firmly against her inner thigh, his fingers spreading across the sensitive area and making her gasp. Their position looked like she was the one drawing his hand to her thigh, keeping it in place. Yet she couldn't find the willpower to draw him away completely.

"I don't even know who you are," she said the words she'd been intending to, yet in a breathy, needy voice she didn't even know she possessed. Sakura cleared her throat, and tried again. "What have you done with Tobi, and what the hell do you want from me?" The words sounded tougher in her head than out loud, and she felt another chuckle against her throat.

"Tobi is in no danger, worry not; I could no more harm him than I could myself." The words were wry, like an inside joke that he didn't expect Sakura to understand, though she did. "He's just…busy at the moment, my dear. My name—I'm afraid I can't give you that, only the assurance that Pein knows of me. As for what I want from you…well." His dark, low voice stirred things low in her belly. "I would have thought that was obvious."

He moved the hand on her waist so that it skimmed under her shirt, against her ribs and her flat stomach. Her sensitized skin burned in its wake, and Sakura felt the hunger inside her dig sharp claws into her soul, briefly, before Inner put some more muscle into suppressing it and what was left was simply more of that dark, pressing need. She gasped aloud, then couldn't keep a moan from escaping when he reached up and cupped her breast, firmly and without hesitation, pressing his thumb against her nipple and feeling how pebbled it was already.

"I can almost taste your need, little kunoichi," the man growled in her ear. "Why deny it, and us both, when you can sate it in the most delicious ways imaginable? I won't tell, not like those foolish boys who got to taste you first. Nobody would even have to know. Just say the words, and I can. Make. You. Scream."

Each word was punctuated by grazes of teeth against her earlobe, her neck, and upon the last, he bit down, hard, on the muscle between her neck and shoulder, pinning her in place, so she couldn't think, couldn't run away from her own desire. Sakura writhed in his grip, pressing her breast into his hand, pushing her thighs together and trapping his palm, and hers, between them, trying at once to escape the pressure and get more of it. With a sudden burst of clarity, she knew she wanted this, wanted to throw caution to the wind once more and give in to this powerful, seductive man who'd ambushed her like a panther stalking its prey, and was now, instead of death, offering her the satiation of her need.

And that was exactly why she couldn't give in. If her own body was betraying her to instant lust, to a stranger whose offer seemed too good to be true, and would likely have far-reaching ramifications…Well, above all, she needed to survive. And not trust blindly in the words of strangers, when even her village had betrayed her.

Sakura laughed, bitterly, at once disappointed that her principles were getting in the way of what she wanted, and relieved that she still had any. At the sound, the stranger froze against her, before drawing back with a sigh. His gaze was wryly resigned, and beneath it burned a tightly leashed need that told her he was more affected than he seemed.

"No?" His voice was calm.

"I can't," Sakura said softly. She was oddly unafraid of this man, despite how he had appeared, and his overwhelming effect on her. Perhaps that was it: when her guard was lowered by his childlike personality, he could have killed her, or taken her by force: instead, he'd offered himself to her and drawn back when her answer was no.

"I suppose it would be foolish to expect you to trust me," he murmured softly, watching her. "I must admit, however, it has been a long time since a woman denied me, and didn't fall into my arms at the slightest beckoning."

Sakura stared at him, and raised an eyebrow. "You certainly have a high opinion of yourself, don't you?" she said archly, blithely ignoring the fact that she had nearly succumbed herself.

The man tossed back his head and laughed, and the rich, dark sound rolled down her body like a physical thing, caressing parts of her that were still throbbing with need. Sakura fought to keep the shudder from being visible.

"Oh, such bravery, such…audacity," his voice held amusement like a rich, red wine, intoxicating and subtly dangerous. "I will look forward to the challenge, my dear."

He brought up her hand and stroked the pulse point on her wrist, then suddenly pulled her close, his breath tickling her ear. "It will make it all the sweeter when you yield to me, beg for it. And oh,  _you. will_.  _beg_ ," he whispered hotly and, with a final nip to her earlobe, released her.

Sakura swayed, and had to clear her suddenly dry throat a few times to find her voice. "That wasn't a challenge, you bastard! I don't care who you are, but stay away from me!" Her protests sounded weak even to her ears, but dammit, she wasn't a conquest for anyone! Not even dark, mysterious strangers with voices like velvet and touches that burned.

"Tobi is Tobi, and Tobi can't stay away because Tobi has to show Sakura-chan her room!" The bemused, childish voice made Sakura snap her gaze up to meet an innocently tilted mask, the gaze within it guileless like a clear spring, and swimming with slight hurt at her words.

"And Sakura-chan said a bad word, so Tobi isn't sure he wants to be her friend anymore! Tobi is a good boy!" His tone was petulant now, and Sakura could tell he was about to work himself into a tantrum.

"Ah, no, Tobi, I wasn't talking to you. I was…umm…talking to my imaginary friend. He's very mean. Not like you at all," Sakura hurried to reassure him. How bizarre to be reassuring the same masked face that seconds ago was making her ache with need and threatening to overwhelm her.

Tobi seemed to calm, and peered at her closely. "Okay, Tobi believes Sakura-chan. We can be friends. But why would the pretty pink lady make up a friend who's a meanie?"

Sakura laughed shakily. "I guess that's the question, isn't it Tobi?"

A thought struck her. "Does Tobi have any imaginary friends?" she asked carefully.

Tobi ducked his head. "Yeah, but Tobi isn't s'posed to talked about them." He kicked at the side of his chair, then gasped and clasped his hands over where his mouth would be, as if he could take back the words.

"Tobi means—Tobi doesn't have imaginary friends at all! Tobi is all alone, really," he assured her with such artless earnestness that Sakura had to suppress a smile. At least she knew that this one could never lie to her. His alter-ego, though…Tobi had said 'them'. Did that mean there was more than one? And could they really take over at any point?

Sakura flashed back to the match earlier, the ruthless way he'd destroyed her clone, the rage and pain in his bellow. Was that the same person that had tried to seduce her or was it yet another personality? Her intellectual curiosity warred with incredulity that she was even considering multiple personalities, but she knew better than anyone that they existed. Finally, she decided to let it go, her head lightly aching already. She smiled softly at Tobi.

"Of course, I believe you, Tobi. Now, how about you show me to my room? I'm pretty tired, and I'm sure you are too." As she said those words, it suddenly struck her how true they were. Even if she was healed, she was still tired, achy, and slightly overwhelmed by the day's events. A bed sounded perfect right about then.

Tobi, clearly relieved that she wasn't asking him about his 'imaginary friends' anymore, jumped in agreement and led her down another corridor. This one had doors regularly spaced on either side, and, towards the end of it, he opened one to reveal her bedroom.

It had been prepared for her already, or perhaps it was one that was always ready for guests: regardless, Sakura was glad to see a queen bed, made up and looking almost as tempting as the man beside her. Since she couldn't have the latter, she decided to indulge in the former.

With a small smile, she bid Tobi goodnight, closing the door behind him, and turned to collapse into the downy softness of the bed. For a criminal organization, they sure liked their comforts, she thought drowsily, rubbing her face against the soft cotton pillow.

Then, without bothering to undress or unpack, Sakura drifted off into a deep, dead sleep.

 


	14. Sublimation

 

A steady knocking woke Sakura up. Groggy, she untangled herself from the blankets, which had been valiantly trying their best to immobilize her, and stumbled to the door. She swung it open without thought, rubbing her eye and brushing her messy hair back from her face. A bemused Itachi stared at her as she sleepily muttered, "What is it?"

His face settled back into carefully blank lines, but not before she saw a flash of dimple in the corner of her eye. He cleared his throat. "Leader-sama wishes me to accompany you to breakfast, and then for you to begin your duties as a medic with the Akatsuki."

Sakura brightened a bit at that, "oh, so quickly? And who, precisely, will I be healing?" A thought niggled at the back of her mind- hadn't Kisame mentioned- "you will be healing me," Itachi confirmed. He looked faintly displeased with the fact, an attitude Sakura was deeply familiar with- getting ninja into the hospital was a full-time job in itself back in Konoha. In this case, however...

The medic peered at him, struggling to clear the last of the sleepiness from her mind and assess him professionally. Aside from the permanent lines etched under his eyes, Itachi seemed at the peak of his strength. More refined than Sasuke, he had a classical, aristocratic beauty to him that was marred by none of his brother's petty arrogance.

But looking closer...beneath the high, sharp cheekbones, the hollows of his cheeks were just a bit too deep. The sheen to his eyes was too bright, pointing to a fever held barely in check, and behind his stoic mask, Sakura got a sense of deep tiredness. Without thinking about it, she grabbed his hand, only barely registering the miniscule twitch in his fingers as he restrained the automatic, probably deadly reflex. Instead, she examined the long, slender fingers- nails pale and bloodless, with a slight tremor that seemed incongruous with the scarily competent strength Itachi exuded. His voice, a vein of wry humor creeping through, broke her hyper-concentration. "I believe I mentioned breakfast, first. And perhaps you might like to freshen up a bit?"

Mortified, Sakura belatedly realized that she was still in the rumpled, torn clothes from yesterday, her face puffy and soft from sleep, hair a mess, and  _Kami this was not the impression she wanted to make on her first day_. With a squeak of panic, she jumped back and slammed the door in Itachi's (lightly smirking, the bastard) face. She tore through her bag like a hurricane, and dashed through the surprisingly spacious bathroom in the quickest morning ritual she'd ever had, barring the night she escaped Konoha. Five minutes later, hair damp but clean, teeth scrubbed and freshly dressed, she stepped out into the hall with much more decorum than her undignified exit had warranted- Itachi's small smirk and barely creased eyes told her as much, though he didn't say anything and merely turned to lead the way back to the kitchen. Good thing, too- last night Sakura had been far too tired to truly register the way.

She froze briefly when she saw the countertop where that bizarre encounter with Tobi (or his bodysnatcher, whoever he was) had occurred last night, but shrugged it off in favor of finding food. As she opened another cabinet and barely avoided the second trap that would have had senbon piercing her neck, Itachi grabbed her shoulders and gently steered her back to the table. "Sit," he murmured softly, "I'll show you all the traps later, but for now I'd rather not lose our only medic on the first day."

With that, he moved around in the kitchen in a surprisingly capable manner, given Sakura's previous experiences with men in her life- they always delegated the task of feeding everyone to her, the female of the group, for all that she couldn't cook worth a damn. Minutes later had her salivating over a steaming bowl of porridge with nuts and honey, waiting for Itachi to set his own plate before digging in. The food was delicious- she ate with gusto, closing her eyes to savor the sweet flavor after so long eating road food, and may have let out a tiny moan of pleasure. When she opened them again, Itachi was looking at her with a carefully blank expression before turning to his own food again. They ate in companionable silence, and again Sakura was struck with how comfortable she felt with this group- first the three Akatsuki she had spent the night with, then Tobi and his bodysnatcher, now Itachi. When she should have been running for the hills screaming from the mass murderer beside her, now she felt no fear.

Sure, it had been Danzo who had ordered him (a terrifying, world-shattering fact she had learned while researching how far back the man's shadow dealings had gone in the village), but it still remained that, orders or no orders, Itachi had been able to slaughter his entire family, bar one, for the sake of the village. Such an act was difficult to get her mind around, especially with Sakura's new status as a missing nin- once she had seen the village betraying the values she held dear, she had abandoned it. So- with her instincts on this surprisingly sympathetic to the man sitting across from her- Sakura resolved to put it out of her mind, for now at least. Regardless of her personal feelings, she had to work with this group, and Itachi by extension.

She was still musing on her surprising lack of fear towards the elder Uchiha brother when he stood to take their plates away, then turned her towards the doorway with a long-fingered hand at the small of her back. All thoughts of the massacre and his crimes faded with that act, her entire being concentrated on the weight, steady and magnetic, burning a hole in her skin and setting her nerve endings on fire. Sakura blinked, languidly, her thoughts more difficult to shake free from the physical sensations than usual, as Itachi led her a few doors down yet another corridor before settling before one. He took his hand off her back to unlock and open the door, and Sakura mourned the loss. But the action also cleared her head a little- she shook her head in one harsh movement to clear the last of the haze away, and stepped into the room, careful not to touch Itachi. He noticed, but silently followed her lead, closing the door softly and walking over to the large, blue-covered bed in- Sakura realized belatedly- his room.

To distract herself from the sudden realization that she was alone in a room with an increasingly irresistible man, Sakura looked around the room- looked anywhere but at Itachi, in fact. Thus, she missed the small smile he allowed himself as Sakura stepped around his room like a skittish doe, avoiding him carefully and studiously examining the bare periwinkle walls (which caused a light flush at the color association- a certain shark came to mind), scrolls lying neatly arranged on the bookshelf, a writing table looking formal and pristine except for the unexpected bowl of sweets in one corner. Sakura felt Itachi following her movement with calm eyes, allowing her appraisal of his living space without fuss and waiting patiently for her to finally look at him again.

When she did, he tilted an eyebrow and patted the mattress next to him, leaning back in invitation. The movement exposed the strong column of his throat, long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks, surprisingly sculpted mouth raising slightly on one side in a heartbreaking half smile that suddenly had Sakura certain that Itachi's fangirls back at the village would have vastly outnumbered Sasuke's.

"Sakura," he breathed, and her eyes widened in shock at the familiar address. "As you can tell, I am completely fine." He let his gaze fall down to his body as if looking for proof, and Sakura helplessly followed it as he calmly examined a strong, long-fingered hand, then plucked at the collar of his yukata.

"Fine," she breathed in echo, drawing a low chuckle from the Uchiha heir. Something niggled at the back of her mind as to how uncharacteristic this was for him, but the vast majority of her being was focused on those fingers picking at the yukata fabric, exposing precious centimeters of sculpted chest. With difficulty, she tore her eyes back to his. "But Pein-san will need a medical report…" He looked deep into her eyes, as if willing her to agree- "What Pein-sama doesn't know won't hurt him. Perhaps you could omit…" here he spread his knees slightly, drawing attention to his sprawl on the bed- "deflect…"- here he let his hand drift down to the knot in his yukata…"mislead…?" And Sakura could only stand there, heat running through her body, as the teasing, damnable hand picked at the knot idly, as if Itachi had all the time in the world to wait for her answer, the only right answer in this insane situation- "Yes..." she breathed unconsciously. The hand stilled, and her eyes came up to his in surprise at her own reply- and deep in Itachi's eyes she glimpsed a flash of smug triumph.

Suddenly, it felt like cold water had been poured over her, with the effect it had on her dazed mind. Sakura closed her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes- she knew that look, saw it every time Sasuke manipulated a fangirl into running an errand for him, or a female merchant into giving him free food. That look- that he didn't expect anything less, that she was yet another girl that would be enamored by his looks into doing anything he asked and not look deeper under the surface. That look was what shook Sakura out of the last of her fangirl regression, and with an ease borne of years of learning to stand up to Sasuke, she shook it off like water off a duck's feathers, but kept up the dreamy facade. In the same soft voice, she said, "I just...I just have one question before I do what you ask." Now she knew to look for it, she could easily see the smug self-satisfaction and...oddly...disappointment?- in Itachi's eyes. Keeping his tone even, and returning to playing with that damn knot on his yukata, he murmured softly, "of course."

"I just…I just don't remember your files as listing you as part of the seduction corps. Was it wiped, or is that something they teach here?" And here Sakura returned to her normal voice, straightening up and giving him an arch, unimpressed look.

Surprised flickered through his eyes at her sudden shift in demeanor, but he kept up the confident stance and raised an eyebrow, "I got extensive...private training. Once an issue with client communication came up." This was said rather stiffly, no longer in the silky seductive tones of before. Sakura suppressed a snort: translation, Uchiha aloofness was affordable in the village they helped found, but in the real world Itachi had to learn charisma and persuasion techniques from scratch. Given his ninja upbringing...well, seduction techniques  _would_  seem a logical choice to an emotionally constipated Uchiha. Seemed they taught him a bit  _too_  well.

She hummed in understanding. "So, I'm guessing the point of all this was that you don't want a medical examination?"

He looked assessing. "Hn."

"May I ask why not?"

Itachi gave a dismissive shrug. "It is unnecessary."

Sakura gave him a disbelieving stare, "I think I'll be the judge of that."

He looked up at her through his (frankly, unfairly long) lashes, and adopted the low, silky voice from before, "Certain of that?"

Sakura threw him a look.  _You can't honestly think I'll fall for that again._

A half-grin and a raised eyebrow beckoned her:  _Not scared? Then come closer._

She narrowed her eyes.  _Two can play at that game._

Defiantly, instead of coming to him- either to do her job or for...other, more distracting reasons, Sakura looked around the room once more, taking her time. The nerves had long fled. She stretched- raising her hands high and arching her back, feeling the scorching heat of Itachi's gaze narrowed in on the sliver of soft skin that appeared between her pants and rising shirt. Pausing mid-stretch, she opened an eye and pinned Itachi down mid-glance, raising an eyebrow and allowing her own smug amusement to shine through. His face flickered through rapid emotions- surprise, appraisal, grudging amusement….approval?- that, had she not so obsessively studied Sasuke's micro-expressions for the better part of her preteen years, she'd have missed. Poing made, Sakura dropped her arms and decided to get to business.

Itachi hadn't lost the inviting lean, but his eyes were dark and unreadable once more as Sakura approached. Closer up, she once again noticed the symptoms from earlier, the exhaustion barely veiled by his carefully cultivated mask-the labored breathing, now that she was closer enough to hear. Thoughts of teasing him fled, and Sakura was all business. Invading Itachi's personal space with hardly a thought, her hands were bathed in a green glow even as she reached for the strong throat that had been so inviting earlier. Her progress was halted by an iron grip suddenly stopping the quick motion her hand had been making- looking up, she saw Itachi struggling with himself to let her closer, this time more from combat instincts at having another so close. Impatient, Sakura said, "Look, I'm here for one main job- as a medic. Specifically, it seems, for you. So you better let me do my job. You already know you could kill me a hundred different ways before the thought of hurting you even crossed my mind, so would you lay off the paranoia?"

Itachi looked surprised at her forthrightness, then contemplative. "What surprises me more is that you don't want to hurt me, genuinely. Nor are you frightened of me. Why?"

Sakura snorted at this new attempt at deflecting her from her job. "If I was frightened of every S-rank shinobi I came across, I'd be out of a job. Besides, we're meant to work together. Why should I hurt you if you are part of the organization?"

His eyebrow furrowed. "You are my brother's old teammate, are you not? Surely he would have told you all manner of things about me. What I did. What a monster I am." His tone was calm and accepting- the hooded, old pain in his eyes told a different story.

"Just because your brother hates you doesn't mean he has the full story. And you are not a monster, Itachi," she spoke without thinking, "The only monster in that story is Danzo."

Without warning, she found herself on her back, a swirling, enraged Mangekyou filling her vision as Itachi loomed over her, immobilizing her wrists by her head. "What do you know of that," hissed Itachi, all trace of warmth disappearing from his eyes. She hadn't realized how open he had been to her until suddenly his face was a steel gate barring his inner world from her. Only his eyes burned into hers with a cold intensity.

Sakura rolled her eyes and shoved him off. "Oh, come on, I was the apprentice of Tsunade, and who do you think had to do most of her paperwork? I found out the truth years ago."

Itachi didn't so much stagger as he sank to the side, expression lost. "Did you tell Sasuke," he intoned in a flat voice.

"No, I didn't," Sakura said gently. "And...I'm sorry it happened to you. Sorry you were put in that position, sorry you had to make that impossible choice. It wasn't fair."

Itachi let out a mirthless laugh, and Sakura could feel him retreating into himself. "Not fair...not fair," he murmured softly. His expression became distant, and Sakura could tell he was sinking into decade-old trauma. "Itachi?" Sakura asked tentatively, but he didn't respond, exhausted body refusing to deal with the situation, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Feeling helpless in the face of such lost grief, she fished around for something to distract him. And idea came to mind.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Sakura swung her leg over Itachi's lying form and in one swift motion straddled him, his hips fitting neatly between her thighs. He stirred, the some clarity sharpening his eyes as he stared at her blankly. "What are you doing." He asked flatly, the faintest note of incredulity arising in his tone. Sakura grinned cheekily, "healing you," she said with a grin that was only slightly strained (thoughts of  _whatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoingthisisUCHIHAgoddamnITACHIyouidiot_ running through her mind at light speed), and didn't move to get off.

Instead, she reached out with tentative fingers to Itachi's chest, her hands aglow with a green light. He didn't stop her, to her surprise, his face blank as he watched her move her deadly hands towards his heart. Once her healing chakra encountered his body, however, all playfulness was gone from Sakura's demeanor and she was all business. The damage was staggering: years of abuse over an underlying chronic condition had rendered his lungs near-unsalvageable. Frankly, Sakura was surprised he hadn't collapsed years ago. Her training didn't allow her to gasp, but it was a near thing.

Her mind racing, she immediately set to work clearing out the worst of the ongoing infection. Thankfully, it was bacterial, and Sakura used her chakra as a disinfecting tool, combing through the lungs to remove every last trace. Simultaneously, she forced the damaged tissue to regenerate, healing what she could and absorbing what she couldn't as nutrients back into the bloodstream. It was painstaking, exhausting work, but her focus never wavered: this was what she had been trained to do by the best medic in the nations, after all. Distantly, she could feel Itachi's unwavering stare focused on her face, his hands tentatively climbing up her legs to hold her thighs. The intimate position no longer registered, just the patient beneath her, healing slowly but steadily until he was no longer on the brink of death. True recovery was still a long way away- his continuous strain and lack of treatment made sure of that- but already, Sakura could feel his breaths coming easier, some color returning to his face, the fever and clamminess dying down.

At last, having combed through the last of the infection in his lungs and finishing her final sweep, Sakura withdrew her hands with an exhausted yet faintly satisfied smile on her face. Looking at her hands in front of her, she noticed a minute tremor before her vision blurred, and she experienced a deep sense of vertigo. She swayed, but strong hands steadied her, firm around her hips before Itachi swooped upwards, bringing his torso close to hers and sliding his hands to her waist. Exhausted, Sakura stared at him, his face close to hers and a look in his eyes intense, like he was trying to peer into her soul. For all the sharpness of his eyes, his tone was soft when he murmured, "You have been working for seven hours." Sakura blinked at him, her brain fuzzy as she experienced a dejavu at the role reversal from before. "Oh," was all she managed to say. A small, genuine smile quirked at the corner of Itachi's lips. "Yes, oh," he agreed. His eyes had long since dropped the lost, distant expression, and were filled with more life than Sakura had seen in the time she had known him. The illness had truly been wearing him down.

As she slowly came back to herself, she felt his thumbs rubbing small, soothing circles on her waist, and the action made her sigh. She relaxed further into the motion, closing her eyes and letting out a tired sigh. Strong, capable hands urged her to lean into a warm chest, the faint scent of mint and clean masculine musk comforting her senses, and she rubbed her cheek into the cotton material covering it, listening to the steady beating of a recovering heart. The hands returned to her back, caressing in long strokes that made her boneless and warm, all at once. Itachi seemed content to just hold her like that, lost in his own thoughts as he cradled her like something precious. Neither would have allowed such intimacy under normal circumstances, but these were hardly such. Sakura was on the brink of sleep when the door opened, and Itachi's arms tightened around her in surprise.

"Hey partner, you'll never guess who they recruited as our new medic! Christmas came earl-" Kisame cut himself off, gaping much like-well- a fish. At the familiar voice, Sakura's instincts had caused her to relax again, the only important thing to her exhausted mind being that there was no immediate danger- and if there was, she certainly could do worse than be protected by one of the deadliest ninja Konoha ever produced. Itachi's arms relaxed infinitesimally around her but his hold remained firm as he shot a deadly glare at Kisame, ignoring the latter's rapidly growing delight.

"Why, Itachi," Kisame began loudly with wicked humor, before another glare from the Uchiha (the most expression he'd seen from Itachi in months) made him change his tone to a not-very-quiet whisper, "I see you're already  _very_  familiar with our new medic then!"

Itachi didn't change his hold on Sakura and replied placidly, "Indeed." That one word, in that tone and with that expression told Kisame, as well-versed in Uchiha-speak as Sakura, all he needed to know. With another, softer grin, he came closer, reaching out and stroking a feather-soft strand of pink hair. "Yeah. She's something else, isn't she."

Sakura's sole impression of the exchange was that of a familiar presence ( _warm, protect, sea, home)_  standing way too far away from her, so with an irritated huff, she reached behind her, grabbed the nearest limb, and with the addition of a bit of superstrength hauled him towards her. Kisame, not expecting the motion and not able to give in to his deadly first instincts, had no choice but to follow along until he was kneeling on the bed right behind Sakura, his massive form framing her back.

He looked over her head at Itachi's face close to his, and gave a huge grin, clapping a massive hand over his partner's shoulder. "You look well, Itachi." The Uchiha gave a 'hn' in response, that one sound surprisingly eloquent.  _I feel better._ He looked down at the pinkette in his arms, dozing lightly. Looking back up at his partner, Itachi pursed one side of his mouth.  _Thanks to her. Stubborn thing._

Kisame gave a bark of laughter, causing Sakura to start, only to drift away again in a wave of  _comfort home safe_ that their enveloping presence brought her. Itachi shifted upwards and to the side, settling Sakura to his side so that Kisame could crawl up to lie beside her other side. Wrapping a blue forearm around her ribcage, the sharkman pulled his face into her hair and inhaled deeply, an unknown tension seeping from his frame at the scent. Itachi watched this with a blank expression, brow furrowed lightly in thought. When he reached some silent conclusion, he looked briefly pained before beginning to draw back from Sakura and Kisame- until a deceptively small, powerful hand fisted in his shirt and pulled him back towards the pink-haired girl. She burrowed her face into his neck, pressing her nose to his skin and murmuring some incomprehensible protest. He let out a huff of amusement, looking up into the grinning face of his partner.

"Stay," Kisame rumbled, looking just as bemusedly entertained, "she wants you here, and she's clearly exhausted, healing your dumb ass."

Itachi lifted an eyebrow- Kisame was the only one he would allow to speak to him so irreverently, but this was pushing it. Kisame snorted, "Oh, you know you've been pushing it far past your limits. Stupid idiot with a death wish," he grumbled, looking far too relieved to make it as light as his tone.

"I suppose. Things change, though," murmured Itachi with a pensive look on his face, staring down at the pink-haired medic that had undoubtedly saved his life.

Kisame followed his gaze and adopted a similar expression. "They sure do, don't they."

Itachi mused, "It seems you left a few things out when you told me of your...encounter," looking up at his partner at last.

Kisame grinned. "Oh, words couldn't do her justice. I spent the last weeks trying to track her down, and now to find her right where I wanted her most? It seems fate is smiling down on the Akatsuki once more."

Itachi hummed in agreement, taking a small, callused hand in his and examining it. "What a strange creature. She fell asleep right here, in the lion's den. I can't decide whether she is brave or foolish."

Kisame gave him a knowing look. "And yet, look at us. Already protecting her on all fronts. Perhaps she is neither."

"Perhaps."

And nothing more was said for a while after that, while Sakura slept on blissfully unaware, and Inner pondered what she had overheard.

 

 

**A/N: Every chapter until this one was imported at once from ffnet! So fair warning: following updates will be sporadic at best. I do not plan to abandon this work, however, so don't lose hope! Meanwhile, feedback is always welcome and a good motivator! Cheers to all.**


	15. Cloudburst

Chapter 15

 

*A hand, lazily trailing across her hip, made Sakura moan. It grasped her hip bone, fingers stroking the sensitive skin by her belly, and used the leverage to pull her from her side to her back. She looked up into dark, familiar eyes so close to hers, long-lashed and holding an unspoken promise. Unable to tear her eyes away from the magnetic gaze, she could only shudder silently as the callused palm dragged slowly up her body, catching on hypersensitive skin, up her toned stomach, between her breasts, pressing lightly on her throat before finally taking her jaw in an unexpectedly gentle cradle, using the barest pressure to tilt her head up into his kiss. 

Sakura’s eyes finally fluttered shut as she surrendered entirely to the sensation, the soft press of lips against her mouth before Itachi deepened it, tracing the seam of her lips until she let him in, and how could she not? 

And before she knew it, she was being kissed fully, a careful, thorough takeover of her mouth and entire self, every little tell of hers being absorbed instantly into the Uchiha’s technique until she was dizzy and trembling. She didn’t remember the last time she had been kissed with such tender care, such attentive devotion. 

Slowly, another sensation drifted into her dazed consciousness: a larger, heavier hand settling low on her belly, the weight making something deep inside her clench with hunger. She squirmed and moved her legs open in invitation, hoping whoever it was would take the hint. The callused hand stroked her skin briefly before, to Sakura’s relief, skipping any teasing and moving straight to cup her between her thighs, the massive size of the palm making her spread them even wider just to accommodate him. 

The firm, heavy pressure just where she needed it made her keen into Itachi’s mouth. He swallowed the noise, continuing to calmly, methodically dismantle her very being with his kiss. The gush of fluid that seeped onto Kisame’s fingers resulted in a low curse at her other side even as she rocked her hips into his hand, seeking friction. 

A thick finger pressed against her throbbing entrance almost tentatively before another, harder rock from her hips sucked it into her clenching pussy. Both she and Kisame groaned at the sensation- her at the delicious stretch, him at the eager way her body drew him in, hungry for him. 

Without letting her adjust too much, he immediately pressed another slick finger in, and then a third, the sudden, unexpected but welcome pleasure-bordering-on-pain making her moan deep in her throat, biting at Itachi’s lip. His hand on her jaw restrained her as he gave an answering nip in reprimand, and moved lower to her throat to rest against the front of her neck. 

Even as Kisame began to pump his large, clever fingers in and out of her in earnest, curling up to hit her g-spot, Itachi swallowed her gasps and whimpers like a fine delicacy, the hand on her throat steadily increasing pressure every time she tried to thrash- much like a python restrains its prey, slowly and irrevocably. 

Finally, she was red-faced and panting, aroused out of her mind, tears at the intensity of the sensations escaping the corners of her eyes as the first powerful orgasm rolled through her unexpectedly. Itachi and Kisame held her down through the convulsions, Itachi tenderly pressing kisses to her face, gentling his hold on her neck and whispering praises into her skin, Kisame nuzzling in and kissing the tears off her face. 

Then the fingers left Sakura’s body with a wet sound, and, boneless, she was turned on her side to face Itachi as Kisame grasped her leg and lifted it to her chest and --the feeling of fullness as Itachi slid in to the hilt without hesitation set her off again, and this time she cried out his name hoarsely as he barely gave her time to adjust to his girth before drawing back and thrusting in, hitting her g-spot from the first try and setting a fast-paced, relentless rhythm that, had Kisame not been holding Sakura securely from behind, she would have faltered at. The Kiri nin had his own heavy, throbbing member pressed to the small of Sakura’s back, and every time Itachi’s thrusts drove her back against him, he pushed into it, the pre-cum making the movement slick and filthily easy. 

Sakura could only hold on as she was assailed on both sides, caught between the two deadly, powerful nin as they lost control around her while keeping her caged, making her take it- and at this thought she came again, more powerfully than before, catching Itachi’s eyes turn to Mangekyou swirling red and…*

...A gentle hand on her shoulder woke Sakura up, and she would have bolted upright if not for another heavy arm around her waist. Panting heavily and red-faced, she met the dark-eyed gaze of Itachi, amusement dancing behind the look of faux concern on his face. 

“Interesting dream?” he queried calmly.  

Sakura flushed crimson, slowing her breaths and forcibly blinking to get rid of her disorientation after that  _ vivid _ dream…

“No, not at all,” she attempted a cool and nonchalant tone. 

He raised an eyebrow. From behind her, Sakura belatedly registered another presence, as the massive arm around her waist tightened with Kisame’s rumbling laugh. “Sure about that, Kitten?” 

Sakura flashed back to the dream again at his touch, and reflexively pushed back against that familiar body...and oh, he was not unaffected either, judging by what was pressing into her buttocks. He chucked and easily drew her in against him again, grinding against her, his whisper a husky rasp in her ear, “Because with how you  _ moaned _ our names, it certainly seemed  _ something _ .” 

Sakura blushed again and ineffectively battled with her sleepy, treacherous body, which, on the tail-end of that vivid dream, was up and raring to continue where it left off. The result was that she didn’t press back against him anymore, but she didn’t resist his hold, either. Casting about for some lucidity, she caught the gaze of Itachi, who was eyeing her thoughtfully. 

Slowly, almost tentatively- a direct contrast to the possessive, dominating presence in her dream- he raised his hand up to cradle her cheek. The gesture itself was oddly familiar, and Sakura leaned into it reflexively before catching herself and darting her gaze back up at his pensive expression. He wasn’t looking at her eyes, though, his own seeming hypnotized by her mouth, opened slightly and panting with barely-suppressed arousal. Even through his iron control, Sakura could see his pupils wide and dark, a dangerous look lurking behind the calm facade- almost as if, should he let that tightly-leashed beast out of its cage, it would devour her. 

Seemingly without conscious command, his thumb brushed against her cheek and rested on her lower lip, testing the plumpness. It was the easiest thing in the world, aroused as she was, to take that thumb reflexively into her mouth, wet it with soft lips and tongue, and drag her teeth on it as he took it out just as achingly slowly. 

A wild look flashed in Itachi’s eyes, and he went very still. “Just a taste,” he whispered so soft Sakura wasn’t sure she really heard it despite being so close, and then those thoughts disappeared when he leaned in and carefully, softly, pressed his lips to hers. 

Sakura’s mind shorted out, and she opened her mouth to his. Unlike his dream self, Itachi was rather more restrained and tentative in his kiss, keeping it chaste and close-mouthed, soft and slow like he had all the time in the world- or rather, like should he make a wrong move, she would bolt. With a small sound of frustration, Sakura tried to deepen the kiss, finally nipping at his soft upper lip in provocation. Itachi’s control snapped. 

His hand went to her hair, holding it at the nape, and he tilted her head up to his just as in the dream before unhesitatingly, desperately pillaging her mouth. The assault was continuous, their tongues dancing in perfect sync, his lips and tongue sliding and pressing and nipping at her mouth until the heat spread along her entire body, lighting it up so that when Kisame chose that moment to press against her again, Sakura gave a broken moan and pressed back. 

At the sound, Itachi froze, and suddenly drew back, his hand relaxing in her hair. Sakura, dazed and disoriented in her lust-filled haze, watched him pull himself together piece by piece, until the mask was assembled once more and the only lingering evidence was in his reddened lips, slightly elevated breathing and mussed hair. The desire in his eyes was tightly leashed once more, and he carefully distance himself, watching Sakura with an unreadable face. 

The retreat served as a wake-up call to Sakura. She pushed against Kisame, this time to get away: while he could have held on to her easily, he let her sit up, and with his own groan of frustration, adjusted himself in his pants and rolled to his back, trying to get his own control back. 

As Sakura got her breathing under control again, the surreality of the experience snuck up on her- here she was, in bed with two missing nin, one of whom had massacred his entire clan, having made out with and healed him as a comrade. A year- nay, a month ago- such an idea would have been profoundly ludicrous to even imagine. 

A snort of laughter made its way out of her chest, turning into unrestrained giggles with the faintest thread of hysteria that had her rolling while Kisame and Itachi watched her with bafflement. 

Itachi ventured, “Sakura-san...I’m sorry for my conduct. It was not my intention to put you into a compromising position.” This only served to fuel her laughter, tears escaping as the stress, uncertainty, and most of all, absurdity of it all hit her at once while Kisame and Itachi looked on with growing alarm. Finally, it all drained out of her, and with a final huff she wiped the tears out of her eyes and looked at Itachi. 

“Oh, Kami, I needed that. And don’t apologize, if anything I should for making you feel uncomfortable and practically molesting you in my sleep.” Itachi looked like he was about to object, but she plowed on, determined to put this out of her mind and get back to normalcy...whatever that was. “Now, let me look at my patient, and see that all that work was not for nothing.” 

With those words, she sat up and moved up to face Itachi, who seemed almost wary before the expression disappeared like ripples from a still pond. Sakura moved her head closer to examine- his cheeks were flushed with health, his eyes had lost the glassiness, and there was more life in him than any other time she’d seen him. As she looked into his eyes, she saw his pupils growing, his eyes darkening- but didn’t register what it meant until she saw him clench his hand into a fist by his side following an aborted movement towards her, so miniscule it would have read as a mere tremor to a civilian eye. 

Determined not to have a repeat of the insanity, Sakura moved back a bit, and used a green-glowing hand to run some diagnostics across his chest. The flood of information the jutsu always threw at her quickly pushed more...distracting thoughts out of her mind, and she focused entirely on the information on cell formation, air input and output, heartbeat and blood pressure, and a myriad other things she needed to check. 

Finally, after about ten minutes, she withdrew her hand and looked at Itachi, who had practically turned into a statue while she ran the diagnostics. “Alright- the absolute worst of it is over, and you’re no longer near death.  _ However _ ,” and here she gave her patented death glare, practiced on numerous unruly ninja patients and cowing even Kakashi, “That does not mean you’re all clear. Your body was deeply stressed by the abuse you put it through, and your chronic illness, while no longer life-threatening, needs at least a few more months’ worth of treatment to truly be gone. So, my advice  _ as your medic _ ,” she stressed, “is to take it easy, and I will hold a healing session with you every week. Try to skip out--” her glare deepened--” and I will not only tell Pein-sama, but use you as a test subject for some of the more... _ interesting _ forbidden medic jutsu I’ve just been  _ dying _ to test out since I left Konoha. So try me.” Kisame whistled at the threat, and even Itachi looked nonplussed, even as he tried to suppress a smile at the tiny pink-haired medic threatening him. 

Kisame spoke up behind her, “There’s also something wrong with his eyes, Kitten. He wouldn’t tell you, but I’ve noticed it in the last few months during our spars and missions.” 

The sheer betrayal look of betrayal that crossed Itachi’s face at that moment would have made Sakura laugh if not for the concern over an injury she’d overlooked. Cursing recalcitrant Uchihas around the world (all two of them that she knew of), she had her glowing hands over

Itachi’s eyes in a second, batting away his hands that halfheartedly tried to keep her away. Here was more familiar damage, though deeper than what she’d observed in Kakashi and Sasuke both. 

The eye was such a delicate organ, though, that until she mapped out its layout precisely and understood the structure unique to Itachi’s Sharingan- just as Kakashi’s and Sasuke’s were unique to them- she couldn’t address the worst of it. However- she directed her chakra carefully- she could ease the strain a bit, take down some general swelling from the vessels, and just circulate passive healing chakra in the eyes for a bit to help them rest. 

A few minutes later, having done all the surface healing she could without delving deeper, Sakura withdrew her hands from Itachi’s face. The drain this time was minimal, and she felt no worse for wear. 

Itachi slowly opened his eyes, the Sharingan inactive, and sucked in a breath. “I hadn’t realized it affected my eyesight so much,” he murmured, his eyes hungrily drawing in Sakura’s features with a new intensity. Sakura snorted lightly, “What I did now was minimal, you still have terrible eyesight- not nearly blind anymore, though!” Here she leveled him with a pointed glare, and he had the decency to look discomfited. “I’m changing the once-a-week sessions into one every other day. I’ll have to map out your eye structure and do some more diagnostics before I can approach the problem, but I should be able to find the cause of the degradation in the Sharingan and stop it.” 

Itachi’s eyes widened slightly, which for an Uchiha was as good as a gasp of surprise, “You know how to fix the damage completely?” There was a new note of sharpness in his voice, as if doubting she got the information from legitimate means. Uchiha paranoia his clan had instilled was still in play, it seemed. 

Sakura gave a half-smile. “Well, when two of your teammates have Sharingan and slowly start getting headaches and losing eyesight, the motivation to figure out the cause comes quickly.” Even if Sasuke never quite thanked her for preventing him for going blind, she added privately. 

Kakashi, on the other hand...the man had been so stunned to not only lose the pain in his eye but to be able to turn off his Sharingan at last, he had broken his iron-clad control and grabbed her into a crushing embrace, the only time she could remember being so physically close to her former teacher outside of training. She still remembered how his heart had thundered and the crisp, sandalwood scent of him around her, his frame unexpectedly making her feel small and cherished as he held her. 

She shook her head a bit to get rid of the suddenly vivid recollection, and focused back on Itachi, who no longer looked suspicious but instead- if you could read the incremental changes in his impassive face- hopeful? That was at least one emotion Sakura could catch, though she wasn’t familiar enough with him to understand the others she could glimpse. 

He got up, and looked down at her, still sleep-rumpled and soft in his bed, his partner lounging behind her and observing. With a bow that was a degree too low for mere gratitude, Itachi murmured, “I am in your debt, Sakura-san. If you can truly do as you say, you will be giving me my life back. Even now, you have already ensured my survival for far longer than I anticipated. I find… I am grateful for that.” There was a note of surprise at himself at the last part that Sakura barely caught, and then he straightened, looking her in the eye. “I will meet you the day after tomorrow for our next session. For now, however- I must take some time to myself.” And with another bow and a barely-lingering glance at her, and another look with hidden meaning at Kisame, Itachi left the room. 

Sakura huffed out a breath, releasing some tension, and plopped back against the pillow, thoughts racing as she tried to absorb all that had happened since she first woke up in the Akatsuki lair. Then a large blue form came into her field of vision, as Kisame propped up on an elbow and leaned over her to catch her attention. Looking at him, she realized that the last time she’d really seen him, she’d been about to leave him and the others through a window, following a night of unspeakable, forbidden pleasure, and planning to never see him again. How things had changed. 

Kisame grinned, as if reading her mind, and reached in to grab a strand of pink hair and play with it. “Didn’t think I’d see you again, Kitten, much less here. Must say, though, it’s a pleasant surprise,” he rumbled, though there was a discordant note of sadness beneath his cheerful words that caught Sakura off guard. Did he...was he mad she’d left like that? She peered up at him, trying to read the sharp, sculpted features as if looking for a script to his inner thoughts. 

“I’m…”She began hesitantly, then plunged on, “I’m sorry I left like that.” 

His eyes sharpened on hers, and now it was him that was trying to read her thoughts from her face. 

“Sorry for leaving without saying goodbye, or for leaving at all?” he questioned gruffly. 

Sakura looked down. “I can’t say I’m sorry for leaving completely, because I did need some time to absorb everything.” When Kisame made a sound, she plowed through it, “I’m not like that, normally,” left her in a rush. “I’m careful, I don’t do casual sex, most certainly not with strangers at a bar, and definitely not with three at once!” 

She chanced a glance at Kisame, noted the slightly hurt look on his face even as he tried to hide it, and rushed on, “But. but...I don’t regret that it happened. It felt so good, so natural, and I think I got scared of that. How I felt with you guys, how it went against everything I used to think about myself and sex and what it should be like. So I needed some time to absorb it, and if I stayed with you guys then either we’d finally come to our senses and kill each other--” here Kisame opened his mouth to object but she quelled him with a look. “Yes, we could have, out there in uncertain conditions and me still feeling like you guys should be enemies-- and the alternative was that you’d keep distracting me, muddling my thoughts until I started to resent you for not being able to make the decision myself. This way,” and this was the hard part, this was when Kisame’s gaze got so intense it felt like it was boring a hole in her face, so she kept her gaze on her hands, “This way I decided to come myself. It was my decision, and whether or not anything happens with us-” Kisame’s face began to brighten with a hopeful grin- “I know that…  _ that _ was not the reason for my coming here. Beyond that, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve never been in this situation before,” she smiled wryly. 

Kisame barked a laugh, and his hand dropped the pink strand of hair it had been playing with to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck, an echo of Itachi’s gesture from earlier. “Kitten, ain’t none of us been in this situation before. I’ve never even heard Hidan talk about a girl outside of her...assets, and he’s been going out secretly and trying to track you for the last week since he got back. Deidara’s sculptures lately have all looked suspiciously like you, and he doesn’t even have the heart to explode them half the time, just stares at them. Itachi...hell, I’ve never seen him look twice at a girl, period. And me--” He leaned in, their breath mingling as he whispered the last part an inch away from her mouth, “Kitten, I’ve not been able to stop thinking of you since I woke up and missed your warmth in my arms.” 

Sakura’s heart thundered, and her breath stuttered to a halt, their mouths so close that she felt that if she only inhaled, she would bridge the distance between them. He waited for her response with the still anticipation of a born predator, his eyes two half-lidded black orbs filling her vision, his presence looming and physical and near-overwhelming-- yet so restrained that she felt that if she pushed him away just then, no matter what it would cost him, he would pull back and never question it. Perhaps it was this that decided her; that, for all the physical presence and power this man had, he was laying it all at her feet. Offering, not taking. 

Sakura’s hands felt unusually small and delicate as she lifted them up to trace over his pectorals, one coming to rest over his heart, one laying over his cheek. And without letting herself second guess the choice, she brought her head up that last half-inch, bridging the space between their lips on an inhale. Kisame’s stillness broke like a dam. 

He licked into her mouth without hesitation, until she could only hold on and take it while he kissed her with a near-animal savagery, nipping at her lip hard as if in reprimand, and licking up the tiny drop of blood that welled up as a result. At the taste, he gave a low growl in the back of his throat that sent shivers through Sakura’s body, and the kiss became positively filthy, his tongue sliding into hers wetly and forcing her own into play, Sakura barely keeping up with him as he took what he wanted like a starving man. 

The sensation of him so close to losing control over her, the sharp teeth that, despite his care, nicked her lips a couple more times, the slightly rough tongue dominating her mouth as the hand in her hair tightened and made her unable to move- Sakura felt overwhelmed, the arousal from earlier coming back with a vengeance. It escaped as a breathy whimper into his mouth as she tried to take what he was giving her and arched her body into his to try to relive the unbearable tension building within. 

Kisame shifted his upper body even more over hers, moving to hold her wrists together up above her head with one large hand, and dragging the other down over her throat, over to a breast where he pinched roughly and delighted in swallowing down her gasps. Then, straight down into the waistband of her tights and into her poor soaked panties, which had been in that state since before she woke up. At the abundance of wetness his fingers encountered, Kisame broke away with a low growl that sent a renewed gush to his digits. He looked down her body to where his thick wrist disappeared into her waistband, and groaned, “Fuck, you’re soaked.” 

Swiping along her throbbing slit, he gathered the moisture on his fingers and withdrew his hand despite her sound of protest. Looking at his glistening fingers, he inhaled deeply and shuddered. “Kitten, I’ve been smelling you for the last hour. Drove me fucking crazy,” and he punctuated with a press of his own throbbing erection against her hip, making her writhe. He inhaled again, then pressed the fingers in his mouth, his eyes sliding closed at the taste. “Fuck, tastes even better than I remember.” 

Sakura couldn’t tear her eyes off him, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked her juices off her fingers, then withdrew them and dragged her tights and panties down to her knees in one sweep, baring her lower half to his eyes. His black eyes gleamed. Sakura tried to wiggle, to move and force him to action, but the hand on her wrists kept her mostly immobile, and squeezed in warning when she tried to press her thighs together to get some friction that way. 

“Keep still, Kitten,” Kisame murmured almost absently, his gaze burning a trail over every revealed inch of skin as he slid up her shirt up to her bra, his calluses catching lightly on soft skin, and then kept going to push both over her breasts. Slowly, he lowered his head down to the pink nipple closest to him, licking it once, blowing on it to watch it pebble, then enveloping half the breast in his mouth with a strong suck. Sakura arched her hips off the bed, but then his hand descended on her pubic bone, forcing her hips down before spreading her thighs as much as they could go with her tights still around her knees, and invading her soaking core with two fingers at once. 

Sakura’s choked cry was no longer muffled by Kisame’s mouth, and echoed in the room as he found her g-spot with unerring memory and pressed hard against it. The orgasm took her by surprise, even as aroused as she’d been since she woke up. 

He easily held her through it, and when the tremors eased, mercilessly inserted another thick finger and pumped away, thumb finding her clit and pressing down with every thrust of his fingers. The squelching sound echoed in her ears as she shut her eyes tight against the pleasure, only to yelp as his sharp teeth grazed her nipple, lathing it wetly right after with a slightly raspy tongue. 

Kisame played her body like a man starved of it for weeks, as if he had imagined exactly what he would do to it once he had it in his hands again, and wasted no time in reducing her to a whimpering, shaking mess. The second orgasm he didn’t even pause through, pumping away as her juices poured around his fingers down into the crack of her ass, soaking into the bed below. Distantly, she thought of what Itachi would think to have this wet reminder of her on his bed, but that thought was overtaken when Kisame’s pinky finger pressed against her other hole, wet and slick, and pressed past the barrier with only minimal resistance. 

The unexpected additional feeling of fullness that Sakura had only ever felt around Kisame or the other two Akatsuki members made her come again with a hoarse cry, as he released her breast and kissed at her neck, sucking at her skin in a way that was sure to leave hickeys. It was like he wanted to mark her as much as he could, some instinct in him trying to make her his. 

Sakura spread her legs wider around his hand, her tights long since having dropped from her ankles, and encountered his own arousal pressing against her on the side. Hungry for it, she pressed her thigh against the length, but he moved back, chuckling darkly against her skin. He looked up, eyes dark and primal. “No, Kitten, I need to make you come. Need to make sure you never  _ think _ about leaving again,” and his voice got a cruel note in it. “Need you so out of your mind that you get just a glimpse of what I’ve been feeling since you left.” 

And before Sakura could process those bewildering words, he moved all the way down, replacing his fingers with a thick, strong tongue. He buried his face between her thighs like he was starved for it, pushing his tongue into her entrance, then sucking hard on her clit. Sakura arched against it with a choked cry, and his hands immobilized her thighs before she could crush his skull, holding her open for him as he slowed the slick pillaging into slow, lazy licks along her entrance, brushing along her hypersensitive clit just to feel her twitch against his palms, lapping up the juices that escaped. 

Then, he spread her thighs even wider and moved lower. Sakura tensed, and tried to wiggle out of his grasp as she realized what he was doing- but he held on to her, halting her worries, “Hush, let me take care of you.” 

His eyes were pitch-black with hunger as she met his gaze across the flushed length of her body- seeing the naked desire on his face, Sakura swallowed and gave a barely perceptible nod- at this point, she trusted him to take care of her, even in this new thing. Kisame wasted no time, and lowered his hot gaze down to the puckered hole beneath her pussy, a darker pink and small and covered in her own juices. 

Kisame lowered his mouth to her pussy first, darting his tongue in and out, and then trailed it down to the hole beneath it, circling the tender tissue with his tongue and then blowing on it. Sakura gave a low, needy whimper that surprised her almost as much as how sensitive she was back there, how arousing it felt. She felt more than heard a darkly amused hum against her skin before his tongue was breaching her, making all thoughts flee from her mind. 

There was something taboo, forbidden about this that added a whole new level of arousal to the sensation, making up for how unfamiliar it felt to have a tongue and pressure and friction there. Soon enough, she was whimpering and pressing into Kisame’s face, trying to get more of it. He drew back, a satisfied glint in his eye at the sound of her protests, and replaced his tongue with a thick, slick finger instead. Sakura’s breath caught- it went deeper than the tongue had, and felt foreign and strange in her body. For a moment, she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. 

Then, Kisame’s mouth was on her clit, and another finger teased at her stretched asshole- and the rush of pleasure through her body made her clench and bear down on the digit inside her, seeking more of the fullness. Kisame hummed against her clit thoughtfully, ignoring her writhing, and dipped the second finger in her dripping pussy a few times while waiting for her to relax, then carefully inserting it along with the first. 

This stretch burned a little more than the first, but at this point the pain only amplified the pleasure. Sakura relaxed into it more readily this time, and Kisame made a sound of approval and began to slowly pump in and out, curling his fingers in slightly, then scissoring them to stretch her out more. 

Soon enough, the motion was slick and easy, and Sakura felt her body start to tremble from the intense sensations. Her moans turned into breathy whimpers, and Kisame slung his forearm across her hips. “Just relax into it darling, let it come,” he got out in a rough voice before returning to her clit. A thumb rested against her other entrance, then slipped in- and that triple pressure pushed her over the edge, and Sakura came with a choked cry, convulsing around Kisame’s shoulders, even as he lapped up the flood of liquid that escaped her, and murmured comforting words into her skin. Finally, the trembling subsided, and Kisame climbed up to her side and let her burrow into his massive frame. Sakura felt raw and shaky, and at the same time incredibly reinvigorated. 

After a while, Sakura came back to herself, and realized that the hardness poking into her side meant Kisame still had his own unfulfilled needs- and reached for it, only for her wrist to be halted by Kisame’s hand. At her questioning glance, his eyes softened. “No, Kitten, you’re not ready for that.” 

Sakura gave him a look of disbelief. “I’ve taken it before,” she challenged, almost pouting. He laughed, the sound lighter and more carefree than any she’d heard from him before, and tightened his arm around her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “I’m well aware, Pinkie.” He pulled back so she could see his leer, then sobered. “But if I’ve learned anything about you, it’s that rushing into anything won’t work out well. And I’d much prefer it if you didn’t run again.” 

A sense of guilt made Sakura lower her eyes, at the fact that she’d created this impression of someone so flighty in him...and also at the fact that he was right. She couldn’t give everything to this man, not yet- not with so many conflicting feelings surrounding the other Akatsuki members, not to mention her professional position within the group, and that barely-blunted gnawing emptiness she still felt in the back of her mind, reminding her that things were even more complicated than that. What a mess. 

She felt his large hand cup her cheek, and bring her face back up to meet his eyes. “Hey, Kitten, I don’t blame you. You’ll figure it out. I’ll wait. This is selfish, too- the less chances I give you to resent me, the more chances I have for...this.” 

Sakura smiled at him tremulously, “Who would have thought you’d be the thoughtful one in this. You’re right, though. I’m not sure what I want now, but I don’t regret this.” 

The sudden rumbling of Sakura’s belly broke the serious mood. Kisame’s face split in a grin, and he smothered a laugh as Sakura’s face got red. “Maybe you don’t know what you want, but I think your body does. To the kitchens!” And with a joyful laugh, he bounded off the bed with sudden energy, hauling Sakura over his shoulder. She screeched, trying to hold back her own laughter, and batted half-heartedly at his wide back as he carried her down the corridors. 

They were still laughing when he strode into the kitchen, and stopped in his tracks. Before Sakura could ask him why, her words died in her mouth at an unfamiliar voice. “Well, this is certainly cosy,” it drawled. 

Sakura stiffened, and Kisame wordlessly put her down. Steeling herself, she turned around and met the cruelly amused gaze of the stranger. “Might we all expect the same... _ treatment _ from our new medic?” 

.

.

.

TBC


End file.
